The Origins of Christmas

THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTMAS

Rev. Kit Ketcham, with Siv Serene Barnum

Dec. 10, 2017

            This is the time of year when that tired old War on Christmas rhetoric gets dragged out of the tattered decorations box and hung on the tree—or the cross, if you wish.  I don’t get into the fray anymore but I do like to pass on the real story, because it is so deeply embedded into our culture and yet virtually unexamined by most folks.

            You may already know this, but the Unitarians and the Universalists actually SAVED Christmas, long ago, building on the foundation set in place by pagan worshippers over thousands of years of honoring the earth, sun, moon, and stars as divine.

            This month marks the Winter Solstice, a holy day which has been in existence since the earth began orbiting around the sun and has been observed for millennia, ever since the first human realized that, after this solar occasion, the disappearing light in the sky began to come back.

            Many familiar winter customs and symbols come straight out of earth-based, pagan rituals and practices.  The solstice was a huge occasion for celebration, as early peoples watched the slow return of longer days and shorter nights, even as the cold winter winds and snow made life still uncomfortable and risky.

            Monica will involve us all in some of those customs next Sunday when she and Stacey bring us our morning service, so I won’t go into much detail. Suffice it to say that in their jubilation at what they considered the Birthday of the Sun, they celebrated joyfully in their relief at the sun’s gradual return.

            Many of their festive symbols are important to us too and the change of seasons during the year were significant as the air warmed and cooled and rain came and went. 

            But other changes were also in the wind, because institutional religion began to take an interest in solstice festivals, and in about the 4^th century CE, Christian church authorities managed to refashion the ancient pagan revelry into a Christian celebration of Jesus’ birth.  They had tried in vain to halt these winter festivals because they honored pagan nature gods.

            But it wasn’t that easy.  Thousands of years of custom do not die gently.  So compromises were made, with nature deities being discreetly transformed into Christian saints and the whole shebang gradually became part of the Christian calendar.

            Since nobody really knew when Jesus was born, the day long associated with the rebirth of the Sun, December 25^th, became the date of Jesus’ birthday.

            Christmas became a mélange of world religious practices---with Celtic, Teutonic, Slav, Asian, Greek, and Roman influences.  It has never been a strictly Christian holiday.  So take THAT, you War on Christmas folks.  We know the real story.    And in case anyone was wondering about that worrisome X in Xmas, that X is the Greek letter CHI which has been used since antiquity to indicate the word Christ.

            Let’s make merry now ourselves, with a hymn that celebrates some of what ancient peoples celebrated:  Deck the Halls, #235.  And don’t worry, you’ll get to sing it again next week!  It’s such a great song.

PART 2:  THE DARK AND THE LIGHT SIDES OF CHRISTMAS

            In Merry Olde England, under Oliver Cromwell in the 17^th century, the godly Puritan Party passed legislation outlawing Christmas.  However, people rebelled and Christmas went underground with its revelry, which included heavy drinking, sexual misbehavior, and general debauchery.  The outrage at this infringement on popular custom resulted in the ousting of the ruling Puritan party.  So much for legislating godliness, sobriety, and chastity!

            But the Puritans were also settling in the New World and their disapproval of Christmas revelry meant that Christmas was banned for many years in early American communities.

            Christmas in the earliest years of colonial America was forbidden.  The Puritans found it offensive to their pious minds.  They had come to the New World with religious freedom on their agenda, but that freedom didn’t include the revelry of drunkenness, lasciviousness, and general chaos that erupted every Christmas season among the so-called “lower classes”.

            There were laws against Christmas celebrations and people could be punished severely for indulging in them.  Talk about a War on Christmas!

            The Puritans did have a point---Christmas had become a season of lawlessness, in which bands of hoodlums in masks, bent on forbidden activity, roamed the streets, and it drove the Puritans crazy!

            Records from 18^th century New England indicate a rise in unwed mothers and in babies born in September and October.  Something had to be done! 

So progressive religious leaders in New England decided that, rather than trying to squash Christmas, they should instead tame it.  Many churches began to schedule worship on Christmas Day and urged banks, shops, and schools to close so that families could spend the day together.  And our religious ancestors got into the act.

Well, you ask, what did the Unitarians and Universalists do?  Well, they literally SAVED Christmas.  I’m not kidding!  Many of our favorite traditions today came straight out of Unitarian and Universalist creative minds.

Here are a few of those Christmassy traditions:

In the mid 1800’s, the Christmas tree with its lights and festive hangings was introduced by Charles Follen, a Unitarian minister.

“Jingle Bells” was written by James Pierpont, organist and choir director at the Savannah GA Unitarian Church.

“It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” was written by the Rev. Edmund H. Sears, Unitarian minister in Wayland, MA.

“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” was written by Unitarian Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as a commentary on the horrors of the Civil War.

Unitarian artist, Nathaniel Currier, of Currier and Ives fame, painted an array of delicate Christmas scenes which decorate many a holiday card.

Episcopalian-turned-Unitarian Clement C. Moore penned the beloved story poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas”, also known as “The Night Before Christmas”, from whence comes our popular portrayal of that jolly old elf Santa Claus.

But the Unitarian author who brought perhaps one of the greatest Christmas stories ever told was Charles Dickens, who, in his immortal tale “A Christmas Carol” penned a story of compassion, generosity, and transformation as the miserly Scrooge is brought to an awareness of the neediness of the poor and the joy of generosity.

It is interesting and ironic that we Unitarian Universalists, heretics to the core in the eyes of the orthodox, have long been champions and even generators of the Christmas we know today.

Let’s join now in singing #244, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” in remembrance and celebration of the gifts our spiritual ancestors have given the world for Christmas.

#244 “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”

PART III:  Siv: THE CREATION OF THE HODGEPODGE CHRISTMAS TRADITION

Insert:  Good King Wenceslas

PART IV:

            Every year, it seems, I have to rethink my relationship with Christmas.  At one time in my life, when I felt lonely and bereft from the losses I had accumulated, Christmas was something to be endured until the new year.

            But every year since that symbolic “hitting bottom”, it has gotten better and, in my so-called retirement years, I have found a great deal of joy in this season.

            It seems to start when I sit down to write out the small checks I send to the many grandnieces and grandnephews in my extended family.  There’ll be a new baby in the spring, in our family, and her parents’ joy is infectious.   I can’t help but smile---and also pray for this little family’s happiness.

            Unitarian Religious educator Sophia Lyon Fahs wrote, about this season:

For so the children come 
And so they have been coming. 
Always in the same way they come 
Born of the seed of man and woman 
No angels herald their beginnings, 
no prophets predict their future courses. 
No wise men see a star to show 
where to find the babe 
that will save humankind. 
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night, 
Fathers and mothers- 
Sitting beside their children’s cribs 
Feel glory in the sight of a new life beginning. 
They ask, “Where and how will this new life end? 
Or will it ever end?” 
Each night a child is born is a holy night- 
A time for singing, 
A time for wondering, 
A time for worshipping. 

            As I look at the children I know today, the young ones who come up to hear the story on Sunday mornings, the littlest ones with their parents chasing after them, the in-between ones looking up to the bigger kids and watching out for the little ones, the older ones growing taller and maturing into big kids, their active minds, their loving hearts—as I look at them and smile, I feel the holiness of this season, reflected in our children’s eyes.

            Sure, they love the gifts and goodies and songs and the stories.  But what I loved most, as a child, and I hope it is part of every child’s Christmas, was the warmth of my family’s love, the tender care that I received and that I learned to give to my own child, to his children, and the love and care that he has learned to give, from me.

            It’s not the gifts we give and receive at this time of year, it’s not the decorations, it’s not the cards and letters, or even the music, though these all have their value.  It’s really the miracle of human life, from birth through death, and all the stages in between.

            We are so blessed by Life.  Even when it’s at its toughest, even when we are in pain, even when grief overtakes us, we have Life and its spirit gives us hope.

            As we look back over the past year, with its joys and concerns, let us be reminded, in this holy season, that it is truly the rebirth of the sun and in that rebirth we can find renewal and strength to last us as long as we need.

            Let us act with that strength to bring joy and peace to one another and to all humankind, starting with our neighbors and reaching out into our communities, giving tender love and care to all we meet.

            Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

BENEDICTION: (as Siv extinguishes our chalice)

Our worship service is ended but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place.  Let us go in peace, remembering that the season of Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa is a season of Light.  May we seek to bring the light of kindness, strength, and peace into the lives of all we meet, for in this way we will receive the Light ourselves and will be blessed by it.  Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.  (closing circle)