The Triumph of Light
by Mark D. Steele, December 2000

On Christmas day, there will be a partial eclipse of the sun. The view from the northeastern United States will range from 50% to 60% obstruction. The eclipse will last for a few minutes and then light will again triumph over darkness.

This was one of the things I learned when my mother-in-law, my wife, my 3 children, and myself visited a museum on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The highlight of our visit was a 45-minute show in the planetarium entitled "Winter Wonders".

The planetarium director informed the audience beforehand that this was a new show and, that, unlike the previous show that evidently focused on Christmas and the Christmas Star (so he said, I had never seen it), this show was meant for a more diverse audience. Its theme was the importance of the Winter Solstice to peoples throughout the world. Its intent seemed to be to make Christmas just another solstice celebration among many. In fact, at one point the statement was made that the selection of the 25th of December as the date to celebrate Christmas had nothing to do with Christ's birth and everything to do with the Roman celebration of the Winter Solstice and their feast of Saturnalia.

Now, I had to wonder as I sat there, whether they had missed the point entirely. Wiser souls than mine have made a strong case (apparently unheeded) that any similarities between Christian practices and pagan rituals do not equate Christian practice and pagan ritual. In fact, if Christianity's central claim is true, then we would EXPECT such similarities and parallels.

This planetarium show explained how cultures all over the earth celebrate the sun and the solstice as the return of light and its victory over darkness. The ancient Chinese evidently believed an evil dragon was devouring the sun(or so the scientists allege).

The show also told us how, in ancient times, the people believed that the sun was falling into the earth at the Winter Solstice (when the sun reaches its lowest point in the sky). They would then attempt to supplicate their gods to prevent such a catastrophe from occurring. Now, I want to leave aside the dubious proposition that grown men, having experienced a winter solstice year after year at roughly the same time and having seen the sun return to its highpoint year after year, would continue to believe that the sun was really going to sink into the earth.

The Romans, so the story goes, also celebrated the Winter Solstice with their Saturnalia feast. When the early, persecuted Church decided to celebrate the birth of Christ, it did so under the cover of the Saturnalia to avoid additional persecution. When Constantine converted and made Christianity acceptable, the Church kept the date for the celebration as December 25.

Most pagan cultures have myths that tell us of an event or events that separated the heavens from the earth. There is some truth to these myths, their fullness is to be found in the Christian doctrine of Fall of Man. But the good news of Christianity is that this breach has been actually healed at one point in time and potentially healed for all of us. Heaven and earth intersected in the womb of a young Jewish virgin. God became Man and Light entered into the world.

The sad news of Christianity is that the Light entered the world to illuminate the darkness and men did not recognize it. But the ones that did, also recognized that truths, scattered like seeds throughout the cultures of mankind, were grown to harvest by the birth of the One Who Is Truth. The feast of Saturn, the god of seed-time and planting, was fulfilled by the coming of the One Who Is Life Eternal. They recognized that the myths of the Winter Solstice, the myths of light victorius over darkness, were all fulfilled at the Incarnation of Light Itself.

Pagan myths, when they contain truths, embody the yearning of mankind for its Creator and salvation from the darkness in which it finds itself engulfed. It is not surprising that the early Church, being the Rock of Truth, recognized the chips of truth in the cultures of man. It is not surprising that they attempted to bring these truths into their proper relation with the Truth. In fact, it would be surprising if they did not.

But Light triumphs. What myths does our culture accept? Are there truths to be found among these myths? How are we subsuming these truths in the great Truth of Jesus the Christ - God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God? I suspect that we will be judged at least partially on this basis.

"The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father." John 1:9-14 (RSV):