Peter EspeutIT HAS been a long time since I have been this far north so near to Christmas.
The days have become shorter and shorter. In fact, yesterday was the shortest day of the year.
Nowadays here in London, the sun rises about 8:00 a.m. and sets about 3:30 p.m., and the overcast sky adds to the darkness. And it is getting colder and colder. Most of the trees have shed their leaves, and birdsong is missing as most of the singers have flown south to warmer climes.
Miserable weather! But there has been a turn. Since the solstice is behind us, imperceptibly the days are getting longer and every day has more light. A poet might say that light is relentlessly conquering the darkness.
WHAT BETTER TIME
TO CELEBRATE?
The early Christians were well aware of this fact of nature, and incorporated this symbolism into their religious system. The coming of the Messiah into a world needing a Saviour was likened to light destroying the darkness.
Since we don't know the actual date of Christ's birth, what better time of year to celebrate the coming of the conquering Son of God than the arrival of the conquering sun?
It fits the church year perfectly from Christmas onwards the days lengthen until night and day are the same length (at the Vernal Equinox), the defining marker for both the Jewish Passover and Christian Easter.
Thereafter, the trees spring new growth, and the birds return, and the days continue to lengthen up to the celebration of the feast of Pentecost. Then they begin to shorten again as the church year winds down, and we prepare for the new.
History may be linear, but we live our lives in cycles. And in celebrating the Christian seasons we give time texture and make it holy.
For tropical largely urban people maybe this is too subtle for us. From summer to winter, the temperature changes only slightly; the seasons we perceive are of rain and dry. The early Christian church certainly conformed their religious system to the natural phenomena of the temperate northern hemisphere they knew.
This symbolism is totally lost in the southern hemisphere where the seasons are inverted and it snows in July.
To this extent the culture and environment of the temperate north has been woven into the fabric of Christianity. Here where the trees now are naked and bare, the sight of an evergreen with its dense verdant foliage is a bright and alive spot in a sea of seemingly lifeless drab.
The evergreen tree in winter life in the midst of death is another culture (and geographically-bound, although not officially Christian) symbol of Christmas.
In Jamaica where all trees remain green year-round or in the south where it is summer at Christmas this symbolism is lost. Christmas Carols about Dashing through the snow and Yuletide and being warmed by the fireside are not our cultural experience.
As Jamaican culture is evangelised, and as the Christian faith takes deeper root in our soil (in many ways we are still a transplanted shrub, or a potted plant) it will be up to us to employ symbols (and lyrics) more appropriate to our culture and geography.
I can see my colleague Ian Boyne tearing out his hair. For Judaizers, who wish Christians to celebrate the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles rather than Christmas, and Passover rather than Easter, all this talk of making the Word of God incarnate in our local culture is not just humbug but heresy!
The pure kernel of nascent Christianity must not be polluted with local culture, he would say; that is syncretism!
Rather, for mainstream Christians, Emmanuel means that God is with us in our culture and soil too! The solution is not to adopt European culture, but to see Jesus in Jamaican flesh living amongst us.
CHALLENGE OF EVANGELISATION
As a sociologist I understand why many Jamaicans have put aside traditional Christianity, and have adopted Rasta or Kwanza.
For many, the Eurocentrism of traditional Christianity is a real obstacle. We have to give and take, to adapt and to adopt, holding firm to the immutable essentials. It is the challenge of evangelisation in the new millennium.
I read Kevin O'Brien Chang's piece last Sunday with interest. Indeed as he observes, Europe, the cradle of Christianity, is now a post-Christian society. Several of the beautiful cathedrals and churches are now more tourist attractions than active places of worship.
The fact that modern Europe seems to be eschewing Christianity does not, of course, invalidate Christianity, but could simply be a graphic commentary about modern European society. I'll be home for Christmas!
Rev. Peter Espeut is a
sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon.
