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The reason for the season: we are never alone
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This is the message of Christmas: We are never alone, said the English novelist, Taylor Caldwell.
On the surface this sounds great. But at a deeper level this proclamation is bitterswee.jpg)
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On the surface this sounds great. But at a deeper level this proclamation is bitterswee
t. I know a lot of people who live their lives feeling as if they are profoundly alone. For them, Christmas only accentuates the pain.
Yet, for those of us fortunate enough to be surrounded by a circle of close friends or family, Christmas is a reminder that we live in a circle of love and care.
And if your religious tradition is not Christian or if you don’t even consider yourself to be religious, you may also feel a little lonely during the Christmas holiday season in America.
But there seems to be something about the Christmas season that transcends religious inclinations. I have a number of non-Christian friends who tell me they love this time of year. Their affection for the season has nothing to do with Christ or Christianity, but the spirit that often surfaces in late December.
It may be that there is an unconscious force at work this time of year.
In fact, it turns out that the celebration of the Christmas season as we know it, is rooted in something other than the Christian religion.
Around 336 CE, the emperor Constantine set the date of December 25th as Christmas. Constantine chose this date to appease the pagans who celebrated the winter solstice around December 21st.
This was a very shrewd move. In co-mingling the Christian celebration of Jesus’ birth with the Pagan celebration of solstice Constantine connected the light of Christ with the light of the sun.
The winter solstice occurs at that instant in which the Sun’s position in the sky is at its greatest angular distance on the other side of the equatorial plane from the observer.
The winter solstice signifies that the darkest of days are over. Every day, the light of the Sun increases. Throughout the remainder of winter into spring, the brightness of the Sun gradually returns.
Constantine combined the Pagan celebration of the returning Sun with the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus as a political act—he sought to convert Pagans to Chrsitianity.
But what if in setting the date for Christmas, Constantine was bowing to a deeper truth than the mere desire to placate Pagans? What if Christ light and the light of the Sun are both metaphors of a deeper universal light? What if the power of this season—whether understood as Christian or Pagan, is that one light shines upon and within us to remind us that we are never alone?
Each in their own way, Pagan communities and Christian churches celebrate the inexplicable light that is forever dawning, even in life's darkest moments.
The deeper truth to which both point is the same: Even when life seems dark and futile, we are never alone.
On the occasion of the winter solstice, the Lake Street Church of Evanston will once again celebrate this deeper truth.
In the 10:30 a.m. service this Sunday, December 21st, a special seasonal surface, “Sing of Peace, Sing of Joy” will remind those present, that they are never alone.
The service will feature familiar Christmas carols, the LSC men’s and women’s choir, African drumming, celebrative dance—and the heartrending seasonal song “I wonder as I wander” featuring tenor Ken Donovan and the reknowned jazz clarinetist John Blegen.
There’s nothing like the power of music reminds us that we are never alone.
Every church, every temple, every synagogue and every pagan community celebrates the season of lights, each in its own way. But in every tradition the light shining in the darkness is a central metaphor--it is a light no darkness can put out.
As Taylor Caldwell put it, “Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent”, not even then, are we alone".
This is a truth that can only be experienced in community.
Whatever your lifestyle, whatever your religious (or non-religious) tradition—know this—human beings were made and meant to live in community.
To live in community is to hear the music of life.
Can you hear the music?
Fear not, you are never alone.
The light of the Sun and the Presence of others are constant reminds of this abiding truth—a truth that applies to all the seasons of our lives--even if we can't see it.
Fear not, you are never alone.
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