Thy Nativity, O Christ our God, hath shined the light of knowledge upon the world; for thereby they that worshipped the stars were instructed by a star to worship Thee, the Sun of Righteousness, and to know Thee, the Dayspring from on high. O Lord, glory be to Thee.
Christmas matters so much more than the secular New Year.
The longer I live the more this is obvious. Each year there is a party, people (including me) make predictions for the “new” year and discuss the best of the past year in terms of ephemeral culture.
Meanwhile, the Church, wisely thinking in lifetimes not months, had a new year back in September and has been reflecting on centuries of the best of human thought since then.
The intellectual activity of Christmas is underrated. Christmas, the birth of God as man, changed history. The Divine Logic became fully human in will and nature and gave us the possibility of logic with passion. Sometimes we can manage logic, but too often lose love. Often we can begin to love, but our lack of logic makes our desires foolish and keeps us from genuine love. We needed Jesus and once we had him, then science, medicine, profound philosophy, art, culture, human rights followed.
Revelation anticipated Jesus, philosophy missed Him. Nobody had a Christmas until they heard of the Christian one and it was so glorious everyone imitated the idea and the Holiday.
Human knowledge needed the Divine Mind to be forever interlaced with the body so that nothing is lost that should not be lost while all is forgotten in blessed Lethe that we need forgotten. What my body tells me (eat less!) matters, my passions matter (love!), as does what my mind tells me (read more!). Christmas is the promise that jollification can be basic to our existence and the hard labor a set up to joy.
The year is irrelevant in the great story of eternity, but not the Incarnation. The Incarnation is over all eternity unique: God became a meat-man, emptying Himself for a time, while remaining fully God. The progress of our Earth around the yellow star we call Sun is petty in fact, but the Incarnation is cosmic history and counts.
Given our short lives, we meaningfully can celebrate the secular new year . . . any excuse for a party! Still, we should recall that the eternal year that began at Creation and will end with the Second Coming is.
We know 365 days around old Sol is not so much, but to us, mortal men doomed to die, it seems great. So it is, and some small jollity is in order, but all that is nothing in the light of Christmas. If we drop the ball and do not remember Christmas, the celebration of the minor will become wrong by keeping us from the deeper joy.
We forget we are born with eternity in our hearts and are designed to move from time to eternity. There is an eternal year that began in Creation, became dismal in the Fall, gained hope at Sinai, and an inevitable eternal Pascha at Bethlehem.
As Christmas ends, such a glorious twelve days of feasting, we know Pascha is coming: the culmination of the cosmic year. The illumination of Christmas will (God have mercy!) be surpassed by the joys of Easter. After a Fall, God helps us go from glory to glory in the cosmic year!
Christ is born!
Glorify Him!
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