A time to greet with fervor
e Christmas tree is up, Christmas music surrounds us everywhere. Getting a spot in the mall parking lot is a problem. e holiday – holy day – season is upon us.
e traditions of family, community, religion, and our own personal desires and compulsions lead us into the fray. Something deep within us needs times when we can almost leave aside the usual joys and trials of life and join in some grand celebration.
Marking the circle of the year goes back to the dim beginnings of human consciousness. Every culture put its own mark upon the winter and summer solstice and spring and fall equinox. is was the natural response to the changing seasons, and still remains behind many of our cultural and religious celebrations.
These moments mark political, religious, or other important events in the history of a country or religion. Nature and history come together in reminding us that we are cosmic creatures, evolving from and tied to the rhythms of the earth and the evolving of the human story.
This solstice season is a time shared by all humanity. In most western countries it has a Christian avour, although that seems to be fading. However, being of Christian background, I don’t want Jesus to be lost in the shuffle. I want to salvage the importance of Jesus in the story of the western world, and his value as a continuing presence within our culture.
We need models of what humanity can be. We need those who live the values and actions that can weave us into a human family. ey help us become a creative and compassionate people, caring for the earth and all creatures upon it. We have just bid farewell to former president of the U.S., George H. W. Bush, where he was recognized as a man of integrity, wisdom, and as caring for the world beyond the American border – I hope the present incumbent was listening. And there are numerous models around. We each have our own heroes.
Jesus stands as one of the great gures of history who teaches and shows us how to be human.
For most of the 2,000 years since he lived, our understanding of who he was and is, for us, was tied to the way of thinking at the time he lived. People met this wondrous person. He healed the sick, even if the stories grew with the telling. He taught in pithy saying and vivid stories. He treated women with the same compassion and dignity as he did men. He confronted the political and religious powers, not with military power, but with the strength of a whole, wise and good person.
People had not seen this kind of integrity and compassion. How to explain it. As was common in that day, famous people were thought to be virgin born, marking them as from divinity and very special. is was rarely applied to a poor person from the boondocks of Galilee, but it was the way they had to express the great qualities they saw taught and lived out in Jesus.
It took a while, but gradually stories evolved to explain how so great a person was born. e gospel of Mark, written about 40 years after Jesus’ death, has no birth stories. Luke, 10 or more years later, has the wonderful story that “there were shepherds abiding in the eld, keeping watch over their ocks by night.” Matthew, a few years later, penned the story of the star guid- ing the wise men. Both affirm that Jesus was virgin born.
I doubt the people who evolved these great mythic stories thought they were literally true. ey would not have our keen idea of what is possible and what is not. However, with the Roman Emperor Constantine and the forced creeds, the virgin birth and Jesus as God became written in stone. Only in the last couple of hundred years has this understanding been softened and put aside.
Now we can see the power and importance of Jesus as a great human being who stands before us as a symbol of who we can be.
So we enter this season of many kinds of celebrations. e solstice and Christmas, and whatever your tradition marks, give us this time when love and compassion shine through all the parades and concerts, and even the shopping.
Enter this time with fervor and you will be a better person for it.