Walking toward the dawn | a sermon
A sermon for Christmastide by Paul Peters Derry
For the first several centuries, Christmas really wasn’t a “thing.” Easter was the main event. Jesus’ birth, though recorded in Scripture, was not celebrated. Scripture does not mention date for Jesus’ birth, a fact that Puritans later pointed out to deny the legitimacy of the celebration. All of this changed around the 4th century, some suggest that it was Pope Julius I in the year 350, or maybe it wasn’t. What came to happen, as a matter of fact, tradition and historical record was how the Church chose December 25th to adopt and absorb traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. Particularly among peoples, and locales, where the days grow “shorter” with less and less daylight, Christmas connected with a shared angst, hope and yearning for the return of the light.
It still does.
Within current practice remains strong attachment between Christmas and the Winter Solstice. The observances, the rituals, even the narratives, overlap, inform and dialogue with each other.
And so a poem from Jan Richardson, called “Blessing for the Longest Night.”
All throughout these months
as the shadows have lengthened,
this blessing has been gathering itself, making ready,
preparing for this night.
It has practiced walking in the dark,
traveling with its eyes closed,
feeling its way
by memory
by touch
by the pull of the moon, even as it wanes.
So believe me when I tell you this blessing will reach you
even if you have not light enough to read it;
it will find you even though you cannot see it coming.
You will know the moment of its arriving
by your release of the breath you have held so long;
a loosening
of the clenching in your hands,
of the clutch around your heart;
a thinning of the darkness
that had drawn itself around you.
This blessing does not mean to take the night away
but it knows its hidden roads,
knows the resting spots along the path,
knows what it means
to travel in the company of a friend.
So when this blessing comes, take its hand.
Get up. Set out on the road you cannot see.
This is the night
when you can trust
that any direction you go,
you will be walking toward the dawn.
(From The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief)
The Nativity by Le Nain, Antoine and Louis (d.1648) and Mathieu (1607-77)
The Birth of Jesus (continued) as recorded in Luke 2: 15-21:
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.
When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
Regardless of the historical accuracy of the Lucan narrative, the overlapping of the story of Jesus’ birth with the Winter Solstice offers a way of deepening our understanding. The shadows lengthening. The long hours walking in the dark, travelling with eyes closed or vision otherwise obscured, feeling our way by memory, touch and the pull of the moon, even as it wanes. That adds interesting depth to ponder in the response of the shepherds. Who, contrary to the assumptions passed down through the centuries, may have been not a bunch of guys with candy-cane crooks, passing a bottle around on a cold winter’s night, but rather could have been women, or families, keeping watch over their flock by night. Faithful guardians, who needed to be both crafty and courageous, sensitive and sensible, balanced and bold.
Like many before, and many after, the waiting was long and hard. Glad tidings of great joy never came soon enough, all too often experienced as mirages of promise that disappeared even faster than the flash of angel wings. Would this experience likewise dissipate, hang around like hoar frost, only to melt in the light of day? Or would it somehow take hold? Could this indeed be the night when we could trust that any direction we went meant walking toward the dawn?
I imagine a fair bit of shepherd kerfuffle, more than a bit of back-and-forth debate before they arrived at shepherd consensus and resolve, “Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” Luke, for whatever reason, glosses over that, or suggests that it was a decision made quickly. The tentativeness that is part of Winter Solstice helps us appreciate that process as rather more involved, circuitous, even hesitant.
Responding to the shepherds’ visit, in the panoramic expanse of new-parent-emotions, “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” To which I would add the poster I first noticed 27 years ago this week, as the first of our children was born, along the labour and delivery floor at Peterborough Civic Hospital, “To have a child is to decide that your heart will forever walk outside your body.” That too is part of the Winter Solstice, even part of the fullness of Mary’s heart.
No word about Joseph’s reaction, maybe he'd dozed off, as new parents get precious little sleep, or rocked himself and the child to sleep tossing and turning, worried how he was going to provide not just for himself, but for a wife and child and …. Would he live long enough to see the child grow into the fulness of the name.
Lastly, the time-bound nature of our Winter Solstice rituals reminds us that we are creatures of time, and we live and move and have our being within the rhythm of our planet’s annual trip around the sun, with the shortening followed by the lengthening of days, and the journeying through the seasons of the year. There’s nothing much we can do other than engage the time, with whatever hope or blessing it offers. And in measure large and in measure small, mark the passage of time with whatever rituals and celebrations that are part of our tradition.
After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
Where and how Winter Solstice 2022, or Christmas Eve, or commemoration of The Namiing of Jesus, has found us. Some of us settled, riding the waves of intensity, buffeted by the changes and chances life throws our way. Others of us, not so much.
Even so, the blessing of The Longest Night, understood and amplified by a baby’s birth, does not take the shadows, or the fears away, but knows its hidden roads, knows the resting spots along the path, knows what it means to travel in the company of a friend, trusting that any direction we go, we are somehow, decidedly, indeed walking toward the dawn.
+ In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN