In the fullness of time

BIBLICAL scholars generally agree that Jesus Christ wasn't born on December 25. By reconstructing historical events described around Christ's birth, biblical scholars suggest Christ was probably born around autumn, perhaps late in September, rather than during the winter.

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says that it wasn't until the fourth century when Christians set a date for Christ's birthday. Several dates had been proposed, but in the end December 25 was chosen to compete with the Roman (read: pagan) feast of Natalis Solis Invicti, or the "Nativity of the Invincible Sun."

The creation of Christmas as a winter event only underscores how we humans try to make sense of our lives, as we go through the seasons. In parts of the world with four seasons, there is a time starting around November when the days become shorter. We see a bit of that even in a tropical country like the Philippines, with the sun setting as early as 5:30 p.m. As you move farther to the north, the sun sets even earlier and doesn't reappear until late the next day. These "dark days" are known to trigger off depression, sometimes even driving people to suicide.

Fortunately, the long dark days end around December 21 with the winter solstice. It's not surprising that people celebrate as the days begin to lengthen, and that the celebrations should be associated with sun gods.

Adopting December 25 as Christ's birthday generated more powerful metaphors around dark days and light. Christ was born during a very difficult time, a whole historical era that can be compared to "dark days." The Romans had occupied the Jewish homelands. Judaism was in decline, its temple in Jerusalem destroyed and still being rebuilt. Local leaders were lackeys of Roman imperialism, corrupt to the core. It was only natural for the early Christians to project Christ's birth as a turning point, much like the winter solstice.

Like the sun, the new religion was supposed to bring light and hope. Christ and his followers, the early Christians, offered an alternative ethos of equality, with no distinctions made between free men and slaves, between men and women, between Jew and Gentile. Jesus had preached love and mercy as the core of religion, borrowing from the great rabbi Hillel's admonition to do unto others as you would have them do to you.

We take all that for granted, but in Christ's time, especially set against the backdrop of the Roman empire, all this talk of love was radical and dangerous. Sociologist Rodney Stark observes in "The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History" that Roman philosophers saw mercy and pity as signs of moral deficiency. Brute strength was extolled, transformed into sport and spectacle as in combat of gladiators. Early Christians themselves became part of the cruel sport: those who refused to renounce their faith were thrown into pits with wild animals as crowds watched and cheered.

These strange Christians clung tenaciously to this religion of compassion, which characterized their lives as individuals and as communities. It is not surprising that within 200 years after Christ's death, despite severe persecution, Christianity emerged as one of the important religions in the Roman empire, drawing not just the poor and the oppressed but also the middle class, the nobility, philosophers. Stark writes that "Christianity brought a new conception of humanity to a world saturated with capricious cruelty and the vicarious love of death."

Eventually, Christianity became the state religion of the empire, and took on many qualities of the old religions and political systems it had opposed, but that is another story. More important for us today is looking to the past to understand the times we live in, our own dark days of empire and plunder, corruption and penury.

Paul, writing to the Galatians (4:4), reminded them that "when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children."

Paul's reference to the fullness of time reminds us that salvation does not come with Messiahs (and, if I might add, messianic politicians). Christ, "born of a woman, born under the law in order to redeem those who were under the law," did not choose to privilege himself as a grand messiah. It was his simplicity that the early Christians imitated, and which allowed them to overcome the dark days.

It's sad how in this 21st century after Christ, each Christmas seems to carry less goodwill, as we find ourselves harassed, gift-giving transformed into an obligation, no, a burden.

The early Christians were wise in setting Christmas in the winter, after the dark days. Their messages resonate in a haunting traditional Christmas carol, called "In the bleak mid-winter," which starts out by describing the dark days, when "frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like stone." But the heart warms as we hear: "What can I give him poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb. If I were a wise man I would do my part. Yet what I can I give him, give my heart."

I couldn't help linking the lyrics to a passage in a book, "A History of God," by the theologian Karen Armstrong, where she observes that the early Christians expressed their faith in a creed, not so much as a fixed set of propositions than in a "carefully cultivated attitude of commitment." The word credere, she explains, was derived from the Latin cor dare, meaning to give one's heart. The message is so profoundly simple: If we could just go beyond pious declarations of a change of heart, and begin to give our hearts, we just might find, in these dark days, the fullness of time.

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