Advent – A Humanist Adventure

December 16, 1984
Lakeland

Port Charlotte

When I speak of Advent as a humanist adventure, such a description could be labeled a contradiction in terms. After all, Advent is a particular period in the Christian calendar, the period of four Sundays before Christmas, the birth of Jesus, Lord and Savior to almost two thousand years of Christian believers; a Lord and Savior miraculously born, who redeems a condemned humanity from original sin by his atoning death on the cross and resurrection from death. In such specific, theological dogmas, Advent is not a humanist adventure, but a supernatural deliverance. Conceded.

However, my thoughts today seek the story behind the story – the human hopes, fears, expectations, celebrations, joy and mystery that are older than the Christian story, more universal the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and touch us with both the glories and miseries that have been part of the human adventure from times more ancient than written history.

Perhaps it is a cliché to remind ourselves that the reality is that Christmas celebrations are a blend of many customs, brought not only from the legends, music, poetry and theology of Christianity, but also from the evergreens of the German forests, the pagan celebrations of Rome, and other sources. Clichés may not be new, sparkling insights, but they are frequently repetitions of truth and folk wisdom. The winter solstice has always been a drama of the human adventure, a time of celebration of nature’s reliable cycles, a time to recall the trials and joys of human liberation, a time to confront justice unfulfilled, a time to meditate on the idea of the holy family and what makes it holy, a time to re-assert hope over fear.

The winter solstice had for centuries been the source of celebration. In our calendar, about December 22 marks the turn when the sun bestows the annual gift of days of more light after months of days of increasing darkness. To us, with more knowledge of astronomy, the solstice is routine in the cycles of the seasons. But to the ancients, particularly those who lived in the lands of cold, dark winter – the Britons, Celts, Germanic tribes, Scandinavians, the winter solstice was the authentic visible reality for the renewal of life, light, after darkness – the fore-runner of the time of new planing of crops in fertile, unfrozen fields.

In our times, we renew as symbols the worshipful acts of the old pagans – the Christmas tree – the evergreen which resisted the autumn death of leaves of foliage; the mistletoe, worshiped by the Druids as a sacred plant which healed illness, to be cut only with a golden sickle; the candles were preceded by torches held by celebrants as the light returned – all these are symbols, but symbols which touch feelings inherited from ancient times. We are moved by those old emotions more than our “modern” minds readily admit. In all the controversies about display of the crèche on public land at this time of year, it is curious to me that in our time there seems to be no objection to the pagan Christmas trees, mistletoe, yule log, even though these are unmistakably inheritances from the “old religion,” the pagan religions. Perhaps such age-old signs and symbols are woven more deeply into our deep human fibers than the later religions.

Commonplace and unquestioned by scholars is the conclusion that Jesus was not born on December 25. That was the celebration of the birth of Mithras, the invincible Sun. For a long time, the historians tell us that the new Christian movement did not make much of the birthday of Jesus, and different dates were suggested by Christian leaders.

In the 5th century, because the religion of Mithraism was making missionary inroads on Christian believers, December 25 was set as the birthday of Jesus, not only to pre-empt Mithras, but to Christianize the Roman Saturnalia.

The Roman Saturnalia celebrating the winter solstice was a wild celebration. They partied! Schools closed, there was feasting, drinking, riotous behavior. I don’t know to what extent drunken chariot drivers were a problem, but the Roman equivalent of today’s Christmas office parties scandalized the early Christians. On the last day of Saturnalia, the pagans exchanged gifts. So the Christians make attempts to moderate the excesses by transforming the Saturnalia into Christ’s birthday. [CJW note: Modern proverb: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. But many Saturnalia practices linger until this very day... absorbed...]

These were all part of the human adventure celebrating the increasing light, joyful that the sun was faithful to its cosmic course.

Nor is it irrelevant that Hanukkah is celebrated in this same solstice season. In December (25 Kislev), the Jewish festival of lights commemorates the Maccabean victory over the Syrians, and the re-dedication of the Temple in 165 BCE. Lighting the Hanukkah candles, the religious ritual is also called the “Feast of Lights.” Hanukkah is specific in that the occasion is a ritual of human liberation. Not only just the return of light, but also the need and value of human freedom is celebrated.

In the Christmas celebrations and rituals there is not always full awareness that the event claims justice for the whole human family. In the gospel named Luke, Mary, when the baby quickened in her womb, is credited with enumerating the lovely poem known as the Magnificat, [which] begins,

“My soul doth magnify the Lord.”

Then recall the middle lines,

“He hath showed strength with his arm;
He hath scattered the proud in the imagination
of their hearts
He hath put down the mighty from their
seats,
And exalted them of low degree.
He hath filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich he has sent empty away....”

This poem has been called the gospel of the poor; it is cited by some who advocate liberation theology. This is one source of the belief that God has a bias toward the poor and disinherited. It is one of the citations that has always invoked many interpretations as to its application in the human adventure, among human persons.

The point is that there developed in this Jewish-Christian tradition the association of the renewal of life with justice for persons; food for the hungry and the lifting of the human spirit. True, it contradicts a saying of adult Jesus that “the poor you have with you always.” But without much doubt, there is more intense awareness of human need in this season of solstice, the old religion, Hanukkah, Christmas. Thus this is the time of year when we gather in the “Guest at Your Table” boxes, the Salvation Army volunteers ring bells over their kettles to get funds for the homeless and needy; many agencies serving human needs sell holiday cards with proceeds to assist a human cause. Our consciousness is raised, our conscience is sensitized in this season of Advent – the human adventure. William Blake, with the poet’s comprehensive grasp, had the words:

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face;
And Love, the human form divine
And Peace, the human dress
Then every man of every clime,
That prays in his distress
Prays to the human form divine
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

One more thought – in the Christian symbolism and imagery, the Holy Family is an object of adoration. The father, the mother, the child. I suppose that is the image of the ideal family. But in our time and for the predictable future, that lovely image of the Holy Family does not match the social realities of our time. [CJW note: Consider the starvation death in Ethiopia – the blinded child, dead children | 2000.] What sense of holiness attaches to these families? [CJW note: Washington Spectator 10/15/84]

A less horrifying but still a formidable reality is the American family. Today almost 60% of American mothers of children under 6 work outside the home. 8½ million American families are now solely supported by women breadwinners. Women are 42% of the labor force. About 6 million children aged 6 to 13 are latch-key kids, going home from school to empty houses. In New York City alone, there are more than 550,000 children in single-parent households, most of which are headed by women.

If the family is holy, what about the latch-key children, the pre-schoolers, the infants in single-parent households? The times they are a-changing. There are some efforts by some social agencies, some community groups, some churches, some corporations, to provide full child-care while the parent must be at work. But the efforts fall short of the need.

Sweden is among [those leading] the world in tackling these problems. In Sweden, 80% of mothers of children under 6 work, and that country maintains a state-supported system of child-care from 6-month-old babes to after-school programs for 10-year-olds.

Parents receive compensation for a total of 12 months’ leave of work, nine months at 90% of pay.

Today, the debate is no longer over the need for government-sponsored [child-care; it] has been replaced by the discussion of how to improve the care.

Such recognition of the needs of parents by Sweden and its citizens would not be popular here, for in Sweden there is a much higher income tax, and higher taxes are not welcomed here. There are those who say that the Swedes are not a very religious people because only a small percent are church-goers, regular or even occasional (10%). But it is a fair question, “Do they consider the family more holy than we do?” In the human adventure, one does, individually and nationally, choose priorities among values. Such priorities tell something about a people, do they not?

If the human or humanist adventure is to carry the ancient spirit of Hanukkah, of the Magnificat, then such realities as the needs of the family in our society must be addressed.

How realistic are we? Do we recognize the perils of our age? Are we prepared for the issues of our time, in our time?

The sensitive writer Annie Dillard, in her story, “An Expedition to the Pole” tells how the early explorers were ignorant of the troubles they would encounter. “The Franklin expedition of 1845, for instance, took no special equipment for Arctic conditions. Instead they took the trappings of Victorian civilization: an organ, china, silver service, glassware and dress uniforms. Years later their skeletons still clutching such objects could be found scattered across the Arctic Sea.” (Christian Century, 11/14/84)

Are we as a people facing today’s realities any more wisely? Or with better preparation?

Lastly, “Peace on Earth, good will among men” was the angel’s song. Lilting carols and traditional words remind us of that every Advent, every Christmas Eve, every Christmas Day.

So far, through all the ages, it has been the angel’s song, but not the full strong chorus of the men and wonder of the earth. Peace on earth will never come as long as the choir is composed of angels, rather than men and women of this earth.

Yet the season is one of hope over fear. Hope that we will someday act as the angels sing; that we will work for the Hanukkah of the feast of lights for freedom today, that we will value the family as holy in our time and in the need dimension of our time, and that peace will prevail in spite of the threats more perilous by far than the tyrannies of Herod.

This is Advent – a time for the human venture and human reach. Theologically many Christians hope and pray for the second Advent when Christ will come again and all problems are solved, all tears washed away.

Some of the Jewish community still look for the Messiah. But I suggest to you those hopes for supernatural salvation do not speak to the realities and needs of our time. Rather, in conclusion, I suggest a Rabbinic proverb, and its meaning needs no elaboration:

If you always assume
the one sitting next to you
is the Messiah
waiting for some simple human kindness –

You will soon come to weigh your words
and watch your hands.

And if he chooses
not to reveal himself
in your time

It will not matter.