It seems remarkable that we as Christians have been celebrating the birth of our
Savior for so long. It wasn’t until the fourth century that we started celebrating a
day to mark the birth of Christ. Was Christ born on December 25? Not likely. Just
like our calendar today, dates are a construct that humanity has created to help us
mark the earth’s journey around the sun.
Each of us can mark our journey around the sun in many ways: birthdays if we
still recognize them, anniversaries of weddings or other significant dates. As
Christians, we have two days that we celebrate: Easter and Christmas. There would
be no Christmas without an Easter. There would be no Easter without the birth of
Jesus.
I was thinking about how to describe the birth of Christ when I came upon this
quote from Madeleine L’Engle. This is from her book Winter Song:
The Maker’s hand flung stars across the night with angels bursting forth from
galaxies, new music singing from the spheres in harmonies that blessed the
dancing of the first-born light. And then the light was darkened by an earth
dimmed by torn dreams, saddened by shrill pride. Stars faded, lost their story, and
died. The dance distorted in strange lies and anger. Love’ s hand again was lifted.
In a manger again the Maker of the stars gave birth.
I pray that your Christmas Season is a time for celebration and contemplation
about the journey of humanity toward the savior of us all.
Merry Christmas.
Paul+