John 1:1-5

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Happy Holy Days

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Happy Holy Days
Series: Happy Holy Days - Part 1
Sunday, November 27, 2022
John 1:1-5, 9-14; Romans 1:20; Psalm 19:1-4; 148:1-6

Ever since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—God’s eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, because they are understood through the things God has made.

Romans 1:20 (CEB)

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

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As the light dwindled in the sky and the days grew shorter, the ancients wondered what was happening to the sun. Their shamans and storytellers supplied the answers.  Gods and goddesses were fighting for the survival of all life, playing games in the sky or battling each other for supremacy. 

Ancient peoples worked to be in balance with the forces of nature as they understood them.  Many cultures carefully watched the sun so that they would know when to plant, when to harvest and when to batten down the hatches for winter.

What people do not know or understand, they make up stories to explain.

What the ancients feared, they named so that they could understand it in some way.

There are common patterns with Deities representing the sun or the light as the central theme.  At latitudes where the tilt of the earth causes the sun to dip very low, tales are told where the threat to the sun is mortal so the people must come forward in the sun's defense. Closer to the equator,  we will sometimes see the sun as simply losing interest or a diminishing of its capacity to perform its duty so the festivals and ceremonies are to remind of, or bind it to, its task

These days, most people think back on the mythical explanations that forces of nature were gods and goddesses as quaint legends…

...We have forgotten what it is to huddle in a fire-lit cave while thunder splits the night sky with sound and shakes the earth around us, so we no longer need know the names of the thunder gods to assure us there is some kind of order in the universe.

Excerpt from Shaughna B. (AKA The Solstice Lady)

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While we easily chalk up solstice celebrations to ancient myths and legends, we must not forget that the ancient peoples who wrote our own religious history relied heavily on these stories to make sense of their universe.  It is no accident that the God’s first word in Genesis 1 is “Let there be Light,” nor is it any wonder that John begins his gospel with a declaration that Jesus, the Christ, is the Light of the World which came into the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it. 

The details and characters of the solstice stories vary by culture and historical period, but we cannot take Christmas seriously without acknowledging this history.  Long before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Paul tells us that God’s invisible qualities were clearly seen through the things that God had made… especially the Sun, which was almost universally worshipped by ancient peoples.  As St. Patrick taught the ancient Celtic people, the sun points us to an even greater eternal light. 

In whatever form or place light shines in the darkness this holiday season, let us sing forth the glory of God.

 

 


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Keepers of the Spring

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Keepers of the Spring

…The late Peter Marshall, former chaplain of the United States Senate, often told the story of the “Keeper of the Spring,” about a man who lived in the forest above a quaint Austrian village in the Alps.

The old gentle man had been hired many years earlier by a young town council to clear away the debris from the pools of water that fed the lovely spring flowing through their town. With faithful, silent regularity he patrolled the hills, removed the leaves and branches, and wiped away the silt from the fresh flow of water. By and by, the village became a popular attraction for vacationers. Graceful swans floated along the crystal clear spring, farmlands were naturally irrigated, and the view from restaurants was picturesque.

Years passed. One evening the town council met for its semiannual meeting. As they reviewed the budget, one man's eye caught the salary figure being paid the obscure keeper of the spring. Said the keeper of the purse, "Who is the old man? Why do we keep him on year after year? For all we know he is doing us no good. He isn't necessary any longer!" By a unanimous vote, they dispensed with the old man's services.

For several weeks nothing changed. By early autumn the trees began to shed their leaves. Small branches snapped off and fell into the pools, hindering the rushing flow of water. One afternoon someone noticed a slight yellowish-brown tint in the spring. A couple days later the water was much darker. Within another week, a slimy film covered sections of the water along the banks and a foul odor was detected. The millwheels moved slower, some finally ground to a halt. Swans left as did the tourists. Clammy fingers of disease and sickness reached deeply into the village.

Embarrassed, the council called a special meeting. Realizing their gross error in judgment, they hired back the old keeper of the spring . . . and within a few weeks, the river began to clear up.

This story paints a beautiful picture of the church’s role as keepers of the spring of living water. Sadly, the church tends to act more as a gatekeeper restricting access to those who we deem worthy of a drink. It is as if we feel the need to ration a limited water supply for the sake of our own survival, not recognizing the abundance available to us and to the world in God’s eternal spring. Like the exiles in Jeremiah’s day, we in the church today have “forsaken [God], the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for [ourselves], cracked cisterns that can hold no water.” As it has throughout history, the life-giving water Christ offers will spring forth in the deserts beyond our walls, and even the deserts within our walls…

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