The Sun Stood Still

Whenever I’ve gone through a rough patch in my life; someone invariably told me, “Well, you know, the sun will come up in the morning and everything will be better.” I’ve always hated that trite statement. When I feel down, in the blues, depressed, or when I’ve failed miserably, it doesn’t feel like the sun is going to come up in the morning. It actually feels like the sun will never rise again and I feel okay with living in the darkness. And then, there comes that moment when I do want the sun to rise again in my life. I need some light, warmth, sunshine.

Christmas is the celebration of the light coming into the darkest part of our life when we need it the most. Small wonder Christmas is celebrated during the Winter Solstice.

For the nearly first 400 years of Christianity, Christmas wasn’t celebrated. Easter was the only feast Christians celebrated. At some point, Christians came into contact with the Celts. The Celts celebrated the three-day feast of the Winter Solstice (as did others and there are other similar theories with different cultures being the influence). “Solstice” translated, the day the sun stood still, was acknowledging the three days when the naked eye could not see the lengthening of the day light. On these three days, the Celts believed they were participating with creation in the lengthening of the days of the sun.

On day one, they gathered around the community’s oak tree, which was typically in the center of their village. They decorated the tree with bright red mushrooms that were indigenous to the season. The oak tree was known as the light bearer. Oaks, being a rough barked tree, are struck by lightning more often than smooth barked trees. Whenever the great oak was struck by lightning, the people would take the limb that was struck and use it for the Yule fire log, which brought good luck into the home with the promise of longer days to come.

On day two, the Celts gathered at the sacred sites like Stonehenge in England and Newgrange in Ireland to welcome the rising of the Winter Solstice sun. These feasts honored the souls of the departed who would be taken into the soul of the rising sun.

On the third day of the feast, the people would box up food to take to widows and orphans, to ensure they had enough food to make it through the impending winter.

Christians witnessed in the Celts celebration of the Winter Solstice what they believed about the light of Christ, the Son, coming into the world. They adopted and adapted some of the Celtic practices and established the celebration of Christmas on the same day as the Winter Solstice, which at the time was December 25. Christmas was first celebrated in 336 CE. At the time Christians used the Julian calendar, which had only 362 days and no leap year.

By the 1500’s the Julian calendar no longer matched the seasons of the years. In 1582, Pope Gregory the XIII established the Gregorian calendar that we still use today. With the addition of three days and leap year, the Winter Solstice fell on December 21st or 22nd, leaving Christmas three days after the Solstice. Instead of moving Christmas back to the same day as the Winter Solstice, Christians left Christmas on the 25th, marking the rising of the Son of God, the light of the world, on the third day after the longest night.

In the earliest liturgies of the Christmas feast, Christians would read four gospel texts in order to tell the story of the rising of God’s light.

At the setting of the sun on Christmas Eve, they would read the genealogy text from the gospel of Matthew. This text was read to remind the people that God had always been present to people in the darkest times in their lives. Men like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David who lives were often lived in the dark shadows. And women like Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba who suffered under the hand of oppression. Yet in all the dark shadows and all the oppression, the promise was that the light of God would shine into their lives.

Then at midnight, Christians would read the story of the angel appearing to the shepherds. The story in the gospel of Luke is not the sanitized version that we are familiar with; a story of sweet shepherd boys being frightened by the appearance of the angel of the Lord. Instead, the gospel of Luke tells about people who had committed a crime or done something unacceptable by the community. These criminals were sent to tend the sheep. After living with sheep, these outcasts would smell disgusting. Everywhere they went, they carried the mark, the smell of being an outcast. Then, at the darkest moment of their lives, the angel of the Lord appeared to them and said the Light of God was now born into the world and they, and all other outcasts, were invited to go and see the light.

Before sunrise, Christians would read the third gospel story, the story of the shepherds arriving at the stable where the Light of God, a baby, had been born into the world. The shepherds, who smelled like sheep, were welcomed into the barn; the stable where everyone, including the baby smelled the same. The Light of God was shining on everyone, most importantly upon the outcasts hiding in a barn; and everyone was invited into God’s house, a barn, not a cathedral.

And finally, after sunrise, Christians would read the from the opening of the gospel of John. The God of all who had become one with creation in the story of Genesis was now one with humanity in the story of the Christ. The Light of the World had become the Light of our lives. The Christmas story is intended to comfort us with a story that God is with us, at all times, even the darkest moments of our lives, when we feel like the sun will never rise again.

God was with the ancient men and women of faith when they had failed, when they were oppressed, in the darkest times of their lives; it was then that God was present as a warm light. God was with the shepherds, the criminals, the outcasts, the rejected, in the darkest worst times of their lives; it was then that God was present as an angel. God was with Mary, an unwed mother in the fear of darkness, with Joseph, in the darkness of being embarrassed by his family, with Jesus, a new born innocent child living in poverty and squalor; it was then that God was present as a warm light.

No matter how dark our life might be, tonight, we celebrate that God, that warm light, that is present with us, in this time, this night.

(The background material for this blog came from Alexander Shaia, author and speaker, as heard on Rob Bell’s podcast December 11, 2018.)