Posted on 12/23/2015 7:24:38 AM PST by Salvation
Some sing, "O Holy Night." Some sing, "Silent Night." Some sing, "It Came upon a Midnight Clear." Christmas, it would seem, is a festival of the middle of the night. Jesus was born when it was dark, dark midnight. We are sure of it. And why shouldn't we be?
Even though we are not told the exact hour of His birth, we are sure that it must have been at night. Scripture does say that the shepherds who heard the glad tidings were keeping watch over their flock by night (cf Luke 2:9). Further, the Magi sought him by the light of a star, and stars are seen at night--deep midnight. None of this is evidence that Jesus was born at 11:59 PM, but it sets our clocks for nighttime--deep midnight.
Add to this the fact that Christmas is celebrated near the winter solstice, the very darkest time of the year in the northern hemisphere. More specifically, Christmas breaks in on the very days when the light begins its subtle return. The darkest and shortest days of the year are December 21st and 22nd. By December 23rd and 24th, we notice a definite but subtle trend: the days are getting longer; the light is returning! It's time to celebrate the return of the light; it’s going to be all right!
How fitting it is to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the true Light of the World, in deep and dark December. Jesus, our light, kindles a fire that never dies away. Indeed, in the dark hours of late December, we notice a trend. The light is returning; the darkness is abating; the days are growing longer from this point on. It is subtle now, but it will grow! And with the return of light, we celebrate our True Light: Jesus.
But light is best appreciated in contrast. We are most grateful for the glory of light when darkness assails us. There’s just something about Christmas Eve! As the date approaches and the darkness grows, we light lights. All through December, as the darkness grows we light Advent candles. We light more as it grows darker. Even the secular among us string lights during dark December, in malls and on houses. It's as if to say, the darkness cannot win; the light conquers!
Lights have their true glory in contrast to the darkness. Who sees the stars at midday? Who appreciates the beauty of light until he has experienced the darkness? Yes, Christmas is a feast of the light. We confront the darkness of December and declare to it, your deepest days are over; the light is returning. And we of faith say to a world in ever-deeper darkness, your darkness cannot remain; it will be overcome and replaced. For though darkness has its season, it is always conquered by the light.
Light has a way of simply replacing the darkness. On December 22nd/23rd, the darkness begins to recede; the light begins to return. It is almost as if the darkness takes up the words of John the Baptist: He [Jesus] must increase, I must decrease. It seems subtle at first, but the light always returns; the darkness cannot last. In three months, the equinox occurs; in six months the summer solstice comes. The darkness will once again seek to conquer, BUT IT ALWAYS LOSES. The light will return. Jesus is always born at the hour of darkness’ greatest moment. Just when the darkness is celebrating most, its hour is over; the light dawns again.
Yes, we celebrate after sundown on December 24th in accord with a tradition going back to Jewish times (that our Feasts begin at sundown on the previous night). Christmas morning is almost an afterthought. Most pastors know that the majority of their people have come the "night before." In a deep and dark December, a light comes forth, a star, and shines in the heavens.
We gather in and on a dark night. We smile. We are moved by the cry of a tiny infant, by whose voice the heavens were made. His little cry lights up the night. The darkness must go; the light has come; day is at hand.
Yes, we celebrate at night to bid farewell to the darkness. It cannot prevail. The darkness is destined to be scattered by a Light that is far more powerful, a Light it must obey, a Light that overwhelms and replaces it. Farewell to darkness; the Light of the World has come.
Jesus is the Light of the World.
The videos below are a celebration of light. As a Christmas gift to myself last December 22nd, the darkest day of the year, I took the afternoon off and went to photograph the triumph of light over darkness. I went to a Mausoleum--yes, to a place where thousands are buried in the walls. But also in those walls are windows, glorious windows where light breaks through and Christ shines forth. Some of the most beautiful stained glass in the city of Washington, D.C. reside in that place of death and darkness. The light breaks through and it speaks of Christ.
These videos are a testimony to just some of those windows. In this place, a place of death, a light breaks through: the light of faith, the Light of Christ. The lyrics in the first video are from Taize: Christe, lux mundi, qui sequitur te habebit lumen vitae, lumen vitae (Christ, light of the world, who follows you has the light of life, the light of life). The second video features verses from the "Canticle of the Three Children" in the Book of Daniel.
As you view these videos, ponder the fact that stained glass begins as opaque sand. But when subjected to and purified by the fire, it radiates the glory of light, which can now shine through it. So it is for us. Born in darkness, but purified by Christ and the fire of the Spirit, we begin to radiate His many-splendored Light shining through us to a dark world.
The Light wins. He always wins.
Pope Benedict’s SPirit of the Liturgy addresses all these points very succinctly. All time is God’s Time so that when the eternal Word assumed human existence at his Incarnation, he also assumed temporality. He drew time into the sphere of his eternity. Christ himself is the bridge between time and eternity (page. 92).
The first thing the early Church did was set Pascha (easter). The Day of Resurrection, as Pope Benedict Emeritus writes, is the new Sabbath. Thus the “3rd day” becomes the hour of Christian worship of God. The transition from Old to New Testament is plainly revealed in the transition from Sabbath to Day of Resurrection as the new sign of the covenant, and in the process Sunday takes over the significance of the Sabbath. There are three different names for this day. Seen from the Cross, is is the 3rd day-—in OT, the third day is the day of theophany, the day when God entered into the world after the time of expectation. In terms of the weekly schedule, it s the first day of the week. The Fathers of the Church added something else, seen in relation to the whole preceding week, it is the 8th day (p. 96 Spirit of the Liturgy).
Of the dates above, the first day of the week was the most important, Sunday, which of course in the Mediterranean world, from which Christianity was historically rooted and developed (Rome, Greek and Jewish). The CHristian day of worship was set to remember God’s action, the resurrection of Christ. But now this date came to carry cosmic symbolism, that is the Sun proclaims Christ. Cosmos and History are now tied together and both speak of CHrist (p. 96, Spirit of the Liturgy). As the Fathers and Church and their theology noted, Sunday as the first day is also the 8th day, the new creation of the Christian now incorporated into Christ. For this reason, as Pope Benedict (p.97) notes, the early Church built baptisteries with eight sides.
With Sunday established as the date of Christian worship, the early Church wanted to also connect the date of CHrist Death and Resurrection with the Jewish caldendar and Passover, This of course was what led to the 2nd century controversies over the date of Pascha (Easter) and Lenten practices.
As early as the 2nd century, we see evidence of some type of Lenten preparation for Easter. For example, St. Irenaeus (140-202 AD) wrote a letter to the Bishop of Rome (Pope St. Victor) [these are the so called Fragments, which have survived based on being cited in later works among the Fathers] regarding the dispute over the date to celebrate Easter. Also in this letter was a reference to how long the fast should be kept before Easter. Eusebius (263 to 340 AD) in his History of the Church, Vol. 24 quotes St. Irenaeus and writes: “The dispute is not only about the day [i.e. Easter], but also about the actual character of the fast. Some think that they ought to fast one day, some for two, others still more; some make their ‘day’ last 40 hours on end. Such variation of observance did not originate in our own day, but very much earlier, in the time of our forefathers.â€
Thus, the importance of this quote by Eusebius of St. Irenaeus illustrates that both Easter and some type of Lenten preparation where being celebrated in the 2nd century Church and has its roots back to the time of the Apostles. At the time of the Council of Nicea (325 AD), the method for calculating the date of Pascha/Easter was determined as well as the notion of a standard “40 day Lent preparation for Easter†as Canon 5 of the Council of Nicea states “two provincial synods should be held each year, one before the 40 days of Lent.†The standard 40 day Lent becomes the universal practice of the orthodox Catholic Tradition in the later 4th and early 5th centuries as evidenced in the writings of St. Athanansius, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Cyril of Alexandria and Pope Leo the Great.
Now with respect to Christmas, this season developed somewhat later than the Liturgical calendar that leads to and comes from Easter. Sunday, as Pope Bendedict again notes is an Historical datum for Christianity. He notes as Saint Ignatius of Antioch documented in 105 AD, “we observe the Lord’s Day”. Pope Benedict emeritus continues that by the time of the Gospel of John, the theology of Incarnation stands on equal footing alongside the theology of Easter. Or rather the theology of the Incarnation and theology of Easter do not simply stand alongside each other. No, these are the two inseparable focal points of the one Faith in Jesus CHrist.
Pope Benedict (p. 106) then goes on to discuss Christmas, and notes it assumed its definitive form in the 3rd century. He points out that the dating of Christ birth starts with the dating of his Death, which was March 25. Pope Benedict cites Tertullian (150-207) who pointed out that it was a well-know tradition regarding the 25 March date of Christ death. 3rd century theologians linked his Death to his Incarnation thus the Feast of the Annunciation was set on March 24/25 and thus the feast of Christ Birth on December 25 developed from setting the feast of the Annunciation on March 25, which was linked to his Death and Resurrection.
Pope Benedict (p, 108) continued “The Claim use to be made that December 25 developed in opposition to the Mitras myth or as a Christian reponse to the cult of the unconquered sun promoted by Roman emperors in the 3rd century in their efforts to establish a new imperial religion. However, these old theories can on longer be sustained. The decisive factor was the connection of creation and Cross, of creation and Christ’s conception.
The fact that the dates of the Lord’s “Conception” and “Birth” originally had a cosmic signifance means that Christians can take on the challenge of the sun cult and incorporate it positively into the theology of Christmas.
Pope Benedict emeritus then states “There are magnificent texts in the writings of the Church Fathers that express this synthesis. For example Saint Jerome in a Christmas sermon says “Even creation approves our preaching. The universe itself bears witness to the truth of our words. Up to this day the dark days increase, but from this day the darkness decreases....The light advances, while night retreats. Likewise Saint Augustine preaching at Christmas to his flock at Hippo “Brethren let us rejoice. The heathen too, may still make merry, for this day consecrates for us, not the invisible sun, but the sun’s invisible Creator”
Again and again, Pope Benedict writes, the Fathers of the Church take up Psalm 18(19) and he points out that between the Annunciation (March 25) and Christmas (December 25) is the feast of the Saint John the Baptist on June 24 at the time of the summer solstice. THis link is seen as both a liturgical and cosmic expression of the Baptist’s own words “He (Christ) must increase but I must decrease” (John 3:30)
Silly. Nobody's claiming that Christmas was celebrated by the Apostles or in the first century AD. The POINT is that the celebration of Christmas cannot be disparaged as somehow inauthentic, just because it is not exampled or mandated in the Bible.
Merry Christmas, iscool! Merry Christmas, fwdude!
Thanks for wasting so much bandwidth on your gobbledygook bullcrap.
“Izlam and radical Izlam are different the same way a wolf and a wolf in sheep’s clothing are different”
Those vanishingly rare occasions when you get something right are really annoying.
What’s the matter, no one ever give you anything at Christmas?
bumpmark
Actually, that's a presumption.
Luke 2:8-14 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger."
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!"
Mary would have needed some time to recover from giving birth before receiving visitors.
It makes far more sense that she gave birth during the day and had several hours to clean things up, get some rest, and be in any mental or physical condition to face strangers.
The flaming has begun. Merry. Christmas!
Day can also mean at night or the middle of the night. The birth of JESUS was miraculous.
Amen.
Great post.
Too much waste of bandwidth.
How long do you figure it takes to recover from childbirth to be fit to accept visitors?
Have you ever given birth?
Just because the announcement was given at night, doesn’t presuppose that the birth was at night.
The Jewish day is reckoned from sundown to sundown. Although I agree with everything else you wrote, I think we need to consider the differences in how a day is viewed in Israel.
Born after sundown(?) the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Bullinger dates it Sept 29, 4 BC) and the angels make the announcement to the shepherds later that same night? — “The Circumcision of our Lord took place therefore on the eighth day, the last day of the Feast, the “Great Day of the Feast” of John 7.37.” From Bullinger below.
Night would be from sunset to sunrise, and still the same day.
Night was divided into watches - according to Bullinger Appendix 51
New Testament.
First Watch, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Second Watch, 9 p.m. to midnight.
Third Watch, midnight to 3 a.m.
Fourth Watch, 3 a.m. to 6 a.m.
Interesting topic that I had not so carefully considered.
Note in the link that Bullinger dates the “begetting” as 12/25 5 BC - Gives a true Biblical reason to celebrate the Word becoming flesh on December 25 and setting aside the pagan influences associated with this date.
DATES OF “THE BEGETTING” AND THE NATIVITY - Bullinger Companion Bible Appendix 179
https://levendwater.org/companion/append179.html#begetting
51. MONEY AND COINS, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
https://levendwater.org/companion/append51.html
Mary did not give birth in the way humans would give birth. Besides many women receive visitors hours after giving birth. What is being posted here is about the virgin birth of Christ.
Interesting.
Tis the season for ACLU, Democrat Party, Satanists, Sharia jihadists, Herbert Armstrong (Old Worldwide Church of God), and all the other Scrooges to crawl out from under their respective rocks for their annual Scowl-Festival of Grinchness.
Trying reading my mind again.....**you are wrong*
I agree!
Does the phrase "Back in Lincoln's day" mean one 24-hour period?
I simply urge caution in assuming "day" always refers to chronos rather than kairos, especially in Biblical terms.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.