It intrigues me that, just as folks begin to think seriously
about the upcoming holidays, with all the attendant hoopla, not
to mention all the attendant parties, the lectionary gives us
these words from Paul instructing us, "Let us behave decently, as
in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual
immorality and debauchery..." Hmm.
Truth be told, through the years there have been serious
attempts to regulate holiday celebrations to insure the decent
behavior called for by the apostle. You historians will recall
England during the tenure of Oliver Cromwell. His Puritan Party
passed legislation outlawing Christmas festivities. No more
lavish and raucous celebration, no more commercial exploitation,
there would be no more Christmas, period.
That did not go over well, to say the least. The people
were outraged; there was rioting in the streets. In fact,
Christmas celebrations were held in secret all over England. But
Cromwell retaliated. Parliament decreed penalties of imprisonment
for anyone caught celebrating the holiday. Each year, by order of
Parliament, town criers went through the streets a few days
before Christmas, reminding people that Christmas and all other
superstitious festivals should not be observed, and businesses
should remain open. There were to be no displays of Christmas
decorations.
In 1647 popular riots broke out in various places demanding
the legalization of Christmas. But the puritan government stood
firm and proceeded to break up celebrations by armed force.
People were arrested and jailed. The Puritans seemed surprised
by the strength of popular resistance to their anti-Christmas
policies, but they would not alter them or compromise their
principles. They simply went down to defeat in the next
elections. The Puritans were thrown out of power -- Christmas
was BACK
In America too we have a complicated history with Christmas.
No surprise, it goes back to the Puritans, who despised it and
considered the celebration un-Christian on these shores as well
as the ones they left. They could not find December 25th in the
Bible, which was their sole source of religious guidance, and
insisted that the date simply derived from Saturnalia, the
Romans' wintertime celebration (which is NOT correct, by the way;
the date is simply precisely nine months after the traditional
Feast of the Annunciation, March 25th - do the math). On their
first December 25th in the New World, in 1620, the Puritans
worked on building projects and made an ostentatious point of
ignoring the day. From 1659 to 1681, Massachusetts went even
further, making celebrating Christmas by forbearing of labor,
feasting or in any other way a crime.
The concern that Christmas distracted from religious piety
continued even after Puritans faded away. In 1827, an Episcopal
bishop lamented that the Devil had stolen Christmas and
converted it into a day of worldly festivity, shooting and
swearing. Throughout the 1800's, many religious leaders were
still trying to hold the line. As late as 1855, New York
newspapers reported that Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist
churches were closed on December 25th because they do not accept
the day as a Holy One. On the eve of the Civil War, Christmas
was recognized in just 18 states. It did not become a federal
holiday until 1870.
Christmas began to gain popularity when it was transformed
into a domestic celebration, after the publication of Clement
Clarke Moore's Visit from St. Nicholas and Thomas Nast's
drawings in Harper's Weekly which created the image of a white-bearded Santa who gave gifts to children. The new emphasis
lessened religious leaders' worries that the holiday would be
given over to drinking and shooting and swearing, but it
introduced another concern: commercialism. And we have been
battling that ever since with a notable lack of success and to
the great relief of the nation's retailers who do their best
business of the year just prior to Christmas. (1)
While most of us think of Christmas as something we have
been doing forever, our present practices are relatively new. It
was not until immigrants from Ireland and from the continent
began arriving in great numbers that Christmas in America began
to flourish. The Germans brought the Christmas tree. The Irish
placed lights in their windows. Catholics from Eastern Europe
brought their native carols as well as the idea of staying home
from work on Christmas Day Very soon their neighbors followed
suit. In the end, neither the authority of the church nor the
power of the state could prevent the spirit of Christmas with all
its excess from breaking out, parties and all.
To be sure, our text for this first Sunday in Advent has an
orientation toward the future: "The hour has come for you to wake
up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than
when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is
almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put
on the armor of light."
I continue to insist that we American Christians celebrate
TWO holidays at this time of year, one secular and one sacred.
One holiday has fir trees, tinsel and trappings, and these days
begins with TV commercials as soon as the Back-to-School specials
are done in September. The other holiday has a humble birth,
lowly shepherds, heavenly angels, God in human flesh, and begins
on Christmas Eve. TWO Christmas celebrations. Very different,
but I would insist that they need not be mutually exclusive. If
we can learn to separate them, then we have no reason not to
enjoy both.
If you are like me, before December 24th, you will be going
to the parties, sending Christmas cards, decorating the house,
and probably spending more money than you had planned. But when
the holy night arrives, you are going to leave the noisy party
and join the commemoration of something beyond imagining - the
incarnation, the coming of the Lord of all the universe in human
flesh in the person of the Babe of Bethlehem. Amazing!
Indeed, you are invited to your first party of the year.
Right here. Right now. The "joyful feast." Food and
drink...offered by the one whose birth we celebrate, the reason
for the season.
Amen!
1. Historical details are from an article by Adam Cohen, "This Season's War Cry:
Commercialize Christmas, or Else," New York Times, 12/4/05
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