| The Winter Solstice is around Dec 21st. The days do not actually start
getting perceptibly longer until about 3 days later. We celebrate the
birth of Jesus, bringer of Christ Light into the world when the light
begins to win over darkness once again each year.
Actually, it is theorized that Jesus was born in March or April. I
believe that one of the reasons is because shepherds didn't watch their
flocks at night---except when the lambs were being born. They wanted
to make sure that the birthings went well. Otherwise they brought
the sheep into enclosures at night for safekeeping.
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| Christmas, Christ-Mass, is the official birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Church's selection of the date, December 25, appears to have originated
in Rome during the early fourth century in order to pre-empt the pagan
festival of "Natalis Solis Invicti". The beginning of the daylight's
lengthening at the Winter Solstice provided a tribute to the commencement
of the Light of God's grace in the Birth of the Sun of Righteousness, Jesus
Christ our Lord.
The date is not only fitting, but the era of its first selection is also
highly significant. In the same period in history the Nicene Creed was
set forth to clarify the Deity of Jesus Christ as God's eternal Word and
Son: "begotten of His Father before all worlds... very God of very God...
being of one substance with the Father ... who for us men and for our
salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of
the Virgin Mary and was made man."
Christmas is celebrated in the Western Catholic rites, of which classical
Anglicanism is an example, by three Masses: of the night, of the dawn, and
of the day. These Masses have been held to symbolize the three-fold Birth
of Christ: eternally from the bosom of the Father, temporally from the womb
of the Virgin Mary His Mother, and mystically in the soul of the Christian
believer.
-- Fr. Andrew C. Mead
Rector, The Church of the Advent
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| re .4, Thanks John -- that is a lovely explanation of date of
Christmas. I'd like to cross post it over to America On-line (AOL).
I *love* Christmas! But not all Christians think that it is a good
idea. A conversation is going on in the Ethics and Debate/Christianity
II bulletin board on AOL between militant (and somewhat angry)
self-pronounced Pagans and militant (and somewhat angry)
self-pronounced Fundamentalist Christians.
The Pagans are sneeringly saying that since the Christians just ripped
off their holiday they have no right to celebrate it.
The Christians are saying that this is true and that since Christmas is
Pagan it is sinful and the Christmas tree is a form of idolatry. I
think they need some of the real church history on Christmas and I
think your lovely passage will shed some light on the subject.
I don't get it. When I look in my little girl's eyes as she gazes at
the pretty lights, I *know* that Christmas is good.
Ruth
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