We
know that one of the reasons that Christmas is placed where it is in our
calendar is not because Jesus was actually born on that day but it had more to
do with the movements of the sun than a real birthday. In the 4th Century, the Western
Christian Church settled on December 25.
Many pre-Christian and non-Christian faith practices within and around
the Roman Empire had celebrations at the time of the winter solstice, the
darkest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. After the solstice, light began to return to lengthen
the days and shorten the nights leading to spring. True, we think of Christmas as a festival of
light – which I will get to tomorrow - but it also offers a sanctuary of
darkness.
Darkness
is a mixed bag. It’s often used as a
metaphor for evil, for sin, for void, for ignorance, for the unknown. Yet, it also offers us the sanctuary of
sleep, rest, quiet, relief from distractions, privacy, and intimacy. So
what kind of sanctuary is it? Is it one
we really seek out? Or, is it something,
a pit, we tend to unwittingly fall into? Because it is so mixed in meaning, it
is both; and that’s why it is such a potent symbol for humanity.
Frankly, I think the Eastern religions have
trumped Greek-influenced Christianity in
being able to embrace the “both-and-ness” of our human experience. They don’t demonize the yin forces of the
cosmos (darkness, gentleness, moon, feminine) and divinize the yang (light,
strength, sun, male). They see both as
essential and balancing each other.
So,
I choose to see darkness as a sanctuary that Christmas offers us just as much
as light. There is something tender and
sensitive about Christmas Eve. There is a vulnerability to the beleaguered Mary
and Joseph, trying to find a place to spend the night, a baby born in the dark
hours, and shepherds resting on nighttime hillsides.
In
our lives, there is a time for strength and light, but we also need to savor
the darkness, the rest it offers, the times of quiet intimacy. This year, after the Christmas Eve worship
service was done, and Rich and I were back home, we were about ready to go to
bed, and we remembered the Christmas Eves we spent early in our marriage before
our children had arrived. We’d sit on
the couch quietly, with only the Christmas tree lights on, feeling our
exhaustion, but allowing the sacredness of the night to calm us. It enabled us to transition from professional
demands of ministry to a family focus.
The darkness, the quiet, the calm allowed us to reconnect with each
other after the harried weeks of co-ministry.
In recent years, we had forgotten that ritual as we usually strained
into the night to get presents wrapped, or put on finishing touches if we had a
Christmas day service. “Let’s just sit,” I said. “It’s late, but let’s just
sit.” We did, and the sanctuary of
darkness nurtured us.
It
seems to me that when we don’t allow the sanctuary of darkness to be a
nurturing, calming, resting and
vulnerable experience in our lives, then
the darkness has the potential to shift in us toward evil. When we are tired – yet don’t allow ourselves
to rest, when we are hurting - yet don’t
allow ourselves to be vulnerable to another person but try to hide, when we are
weak - but try to pretend we are not, darkness, which is meant to be a gift and
sanctuary, becomes a pit of despair and destruction.
Instead,
we can enter the sanctuary of darkness and let God nurture our weary souls. We
can sing its most beloved anthem: “Silent night, holy night – all is calm, all
is bright. Round yon virgin, mother and child; holy infant, tender and mild,
sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.”
No comments:
Post a Comment