This Holy Night

The church is quiet now between services, and I am enjoying a nice cuppa and reflecting on the cosmic significance of this night.

It has become oh so popular for the culture to constantly harp that "this isn't really the night, and it was originally a pagan holiday that the church co opted or 'baptized'."  My initial response to these metaphorically challenged individuals is "who cares?"  First, according to Luke, the shepherds were told at night that Jesus was born, but it did not say which night.  It was probably even in the spring, but to focus on such "historical" details misses a much bigger theological point.

Now, the feast of Christmas was not a co opted pagan holiday.  The Romans did not institute a celebration of the Sun until Aurelian did so in 274 AD, in hopes of reviving the flagging Empire.  Dr. William Tighe has written an excellent refutation of the commonly held error that Christian's stole the pagan holiday.

This night, also, points the way to another night, the darkness of Good Friday.  The lights we light at late Mass, where the opening verses of John are read, is symbolic of the Isaiahic light to the nations, the birth of the Messiah, "the light of the world", and the Resurrection.  This connection was made early, with the belief, as Dr. Tighe puts it, of the Integral Age.  This held that the date of a prophet's death coincided with the date of their birth or conception.  So when the Western Church, albeit mistakenly, calculated the date of Jesus' death to 25 March 29, the conclusion was that Jesus was born on 25 December, exactly nine months later.  For the Church, therefore, this is not about "historical fact", but theological fact. The birth of Jesus cannot be separated from the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

Finally, even the town in which Jesus is born has deep theological meaning.  Bethlehem, in Hebrew, means "house of bread."  Jesus calls himself, in John's Gospel, the bread of life, in the Eucharist we repeat Jesus' words over the bread, "Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you."  Theologically, the only bread we really need to really live, was born in the town known as the House of Bread.

In the words of CS Lewis, "...the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs.  If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time.  God became man for no other purpose.  It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose."  (Mere Christianity, Harper, San Francisco, 2001, 199)

This is a cosmic night.  Merry Christmas!