Every year, millions of people celebrate, observe or stop to think of an event that is supposed to have occurred in December nearly 2000 years ago. Even people who are sticklers for facts and chronology, work towards the date December 25, marking it off for Jesus Christ, before and after whom, Time itself is divided. Although until the fourth century Christian churches celebrated Christmas on June 6 and the Armenian Church continues to do so today, according to the almanac and the show of light in the skies over Judaea, Jesus of Nazareth was probably born some time in September. Through millennia, historians like Joseph A. Fitzmyer (20th century) and Bishop Clement of Alexandria (4th century) have thought that it might have been as early as March.
How then is it December?
For centuries, a weeklong Roman (pagan) holiday of Saturnalia was when Roman courts were closed (December 17 – 25). The Greek poet and historian Lucian in his dialogue entitled ‘Saturnalia’ describes widespread intoxication, public nudity and many forms of license all of which went unpunished because the law was on holiday. In the fourth century AD, Christian Rome promised their converts that they could continue to celebrate Saturnalia every year. To undermine and bury the pagan festival and the memory of what it had stood for, Christian leaders named the concluding day of Saturnalia as Jesus’ birthday. Interestingly, in the 17th century, the Puritans of Massachusetts took such a bitter stand against the known pagan origin of December 25 that Christmas celebrations and observances were banned between 1659-81 in their communities.
In his seminars, contemporary thinker Dr. Martin Kampchen says that end-December was chosen for Christmas because “from December 21 the days start to grow longer again. Since an important symbol of Jesus is the Sun (which connects so well with Hinduism), the sun is ‘born again’ and grows from December 21: a touching metaphor connecting Christianity with the cosmos — and with Hindu symbolic sentiments.”
Like all history shrouded by myth there are different accounts for us to relate to. The Gospels do not even agree about the details of Jesus’ birth. Luke and Matthew say it was in Bethlehem. The shepherds visit the baby only in Luke ; the Wise Men show up only in Matthew (no mention of their number); Mark’s Gospel , the earliest account doesn’t even mention the sacred birth. John is equally silent: no angels sang over Jesus’ crib in the account according to him. Yet so strong is the human need to objectify, to adore, to worship the sacred, that the story of Christmas in which the Divine lay in a manger holds a marvellous and eternal appeal for everyone, not just Christians.
Though the New Testament says that he had existed from the beginning of time, and though he would later prove that he was not bound by his body or the rules of gravity, perhaps the wise men going in search of the special Child symbolises also, our delusion that God is actually to be found only in a particular place of worship. The all-pervading consciousness is everywhere and in everyone just like the mysterious message of the Kingdom of God which puzzled nearly everyone who heard it.
Right through his life, Christ would emphasise the non-materiality of life and the purpose of his birth and work, but few would understand him. Indeed, “Do you understand all these things?” was a question he would ask.
So Christmas was certainly not December. It was probably not even in the first century AD but rather in the third, though compared to the intensity of Christ’s message about his Father, none of these details matter. Jesus Christ’s arrival was proof that the divine mystery could indeed exist in man. The incarnation of the Divine among humans is God’s refusal to make a distinction between divinity and humanity. Both a statement and a promise of love no matter what, the sacred birth was an announcement that a theology which draws distinctions and tells you how to get from the human to the divine is over.
Christmas is where Christ’s message lives.
The views expressed here are that of the author’s and do not represent those of the newspaper.
