Christmas
No. 4: A Compendium Entry for the Journey
“At Christmas play and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year.” -Thom Tusser (1524-1580), The Farmer’s Daily Diet
“Heap on more wood! - the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.” -Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), “Marmion”1
Chri’stmas. n.s. [from Christ and Mass]
/ˈkrɪs.məs/
Definitions
Merriam-Webster, contemporary: 1. a Christian feast on December 25 or among some Eastern Orthodox Christians on January 7 that commemorates the birth of Christ and is usually observed as a legal holiday.
Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1773): The day on which the nativity of our blessed Savior is celebrated, by the particular service of the church.
MakeGoodHappen with Randy Lovejoy: an annual opportunity for reflection, creativity, and celebration of the incarnation with our family and friends.
Etymology
Late old English “Cristes mæsse” from Christ and mass. Written as one word from the 14th century. As a verb, “to celebrate Christmas,” from the 1590s. “Xmas” is an abbreviation of the Greek name of “Christ”, Χριστός (Christos). The shortened form can be traced at least as far back as 1100 AD.
How It Makesgoodhappen:
My wife was in labor for 45 hours before our first son was born. Cheryl’s exhaustion and Lucas’ cone-shaped head were signs of the struggle. Thanks to Lucas’ fontanel, his head quickly came back to the shape typical of a human skull. My wife, like so many other women in history, recovered and even dared to have a second child. Our first son is now an artist and businessman who is married to our amazing daughter-in-law, Karren. We simply can’t imagine life without them.
Christmas had a difficult beginning as well. Easter has been with us since the beginning of Christianity. But Christmas had a more difficult birth with a labor that lasted more than 300 years. Nevertheless, through its thousands of years of existence, Christmas has had an incredible impact on humanity, resulting in so much many traditions and so much beauty that it’s difficult to imagine life without it.
If we were to return to the second century, however, we would find such a life. Neither Irenaeus, an early church father from what is now France nor Tertullian, who was from North Africa, included Christmas in their list of Christian celebrations. In the third century, Origen, an Egyptian whom many regard as the first systematic philosopher and theologian of Christianity, actually opposed such festivals as being celebrated only by the “unregenerate.” Even St. Jerome as late as 410 was opposed to Christmas. The struggle with Christmas wasn’t only in ancient times. More recently and closer to home, Christmas was not celebrated in the settlements of New England for their first two centuries. Between 1659 and 1681 celebrating Christmas in Massachusetts was illegal resulting in a 5 shilling fine.
The tension behind these contractions is still with us today. The Puritans distrusted Christmas because there was no biblical or historical reason to believe that Jesus was born on December 25. Christians in the fourth century would have agreed. The date was not chosen to reflect the Bible or history. It was chosen as a replacement for a time of feasting already on the Roman calendar. And this was the problem for many of the early opponents of Christmas. They weren’t concerned about whether or not Christmas represented the correct date of Jesus’ birth. They knew that the date was chosen as a Christian re-interpretation of a particular time of feasting. Their concern was that the new, Christian meaning of the season would be obscured by the one it replaced. They didn’t want to take the chance that the celebration of Jesus’ birth would be confused with all of the other non-Christian feast days, including the birthday feasts of the Roman Emperors.
Despite these fears, the theological significance of the birth of Jesus combined with the feasting practices of the past joined together give birth to a beautiful celebration for the followers of Jesus. We call it Christmas. Though there have been abuses of the season, the net effect is creativity and beauty.
Christmas began with a yearning to celebrate Jesus’ birth among everyday Christians. This grassroots desire developed through the early years of the faith finally came to a head in the fourth century. In 386 John Chrysostom, who lived in modern-day Turkey, urged the church in Antioch (now Syria) to agree on December 25 for the celebration of Jesus’ birth. Establishing that date unleashed an incredible creativity that soon spread far and wide. The period of “Advent,” preceding Christmas, developed before the 5th century. The Council of Tours, meeting in what is now France in 567, proclaimed the twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany as a sacred and festive season as well. The Italian Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) developed the nativity, combining the stories of Matthew and Luke, as a way of sharing the good news with an illiterate population. The Christmas tree developed among devout Christians in Central Europe and the Baltic states who began to bring trees into their homes in the 16th century. Handel wrote his famous “Messiah” oratorio in the 18th century. The idea of an advent wreath developed among German Lutherans in the 16th century but the modern form we are familiar with was developed in 1839 by Johann Wichern in his urban mission work with the poor.
The gratitude and creativity of Christmas continues today. This Christmas we have the opportunity to makegoodhappen by mixing these past traditions with our own innovations as we “make merry” with friends and family.
Merry Christmas!
Intro to Canto VI, Stanza 1
Merry Christmas to the clan!