Come, O Come, Emmmanuel

Tommy Dillon

A Devotional

This Advent thing is so strange. We await the birth of the one who came to bring us peace, but we can’t stop to breathe because we’re rushing around like lunatics buying stuff, preparing family dinners, and stressing out in general. If this supposed to be a sacred time, what’s with all the commercialism and the stress? Where did this conflicting behavior about this season come from? I have a theory.

In 354 A.D. the Church set December 25th as the birth date of Jesus, intending to Christianize the Roman date of the Winter Solstice. Solstice literally means standing-still-sun, and it is the day of the year when the night is longest and the day shortest. December 25th was also the date of the supposed virgin birth of Mithras, the ancient Zoroastrian god of light popular with Roman soldiers.

Solstice celebrations are historically attested back as far as 4,000 B.C. in most cultures, especially those where winter is harsh. They have common elements of feasting, gift-giving, celebration, bonfires, candles, evergreens…and anticipation. Further, the ancients carried a deep-seated anxiety that spring would not come, and to assuage this apprehension, they developed rituals to please the gods they believed controlled such matters. Later, Christian leaders endeavored to attract pagans to the faith by adding Christian meaning to these existing festivals.

What does all of this have to do with us at Advent in 2006? My theory is that the overlaying of a Christian tradition onto millennia of pagan ritual has contributed to a clash of the sacred and the secular that we may never overcome. Further, since this odd anxiety is so deeply rooted in the human psyche, there is no escaping this primal angst as our nights grow longer.

The Good News is that we as Christians recognize the symbolism of who this waiting is for. We anticipate the birth of the one who came to deliver the world from its separation from God. We call it Advent, and so, in whatever emotional state we find ourselves, we joyfully wait.

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