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A 'myth' - but they celebrate it just the same
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I have heard this phrase uttered by seemingly intelligent and well educated people.
The sort of people who would go and view an exhibition of the artefacts and treasures of Tutankhamen, or would watch a television programme on dinosaurs.
They, apparently, have no difficulty in accepting historical facts from thousands of years before the coming of Christ but the goings on in Bethlehem a mere 735,000 days ago, they struggle with.
The Gospels are not viewed from a historical perspective, Roman manuscripts documenting the Palestinian social and political situation, ignored.
Yet they are keen to have their 'happy holiday' vacation and keener still to receive gifts.
They send out Christmas cards, enjoy the carol service from King's College and consume trolley loads of food and drink, for what purpose?
To celebrate a myth.
"To celebrate a myth."
ReplyDeleteSANCTUARY STARS
To all my friends
I cannot see
I'll pray for you
On bended knee
On Christmas morn
At stable's side
Where Christ the King
Once did abide.
Amidst the stench
Of creatures low
Yet star above
Sent down its glow.
First Sanctuary light
Bold thing
A beacon for
The hidden King.
And when bad men
Snuff earthly light
Stars are born
To light the night.
That's why He put the stars
So much,
Up in the sky
Where men can't touch.
For candled flames
Men can bring low,
Sanctuary stars
Won't lose their glow.
So at each stable
Be not forlorn
If bad men say
"He was not born!"
Look up O man
The sky is flooded...
With Sanctuary light
Sanctuary-star studded!
I think *they* are celebrating what perhaps should be called "Winterval". It's nothing to do with Christmas, except that it happens at the same time of the year. Let them celebrate their Winterval, with its singing and feasting and revelling, its snowy scenes and robins and gifts. It's OK. As for me and my house, though, we celebrate Christmas, Jesus Christ's birthday, on 25 December each year, with prayer and thanksgiving, feasting and gifts and sending cards, much the same as *they* do, but in celebration os Something quite different.
ReplyDeleteIan in England
Ian, you are right but there are also those who acknowledge Christmas as a sort of Christian folk tale and that is so very sad.
Delete...*of
ReplyDeleteIan in England, again
Ian pretty much sums up what I was thinking on the way home from work tonight — call it Winterval, or Saturnalia, or Festivus, whatever they're all celebrating isn't Christmas but a pale shadow that merely shares a spot on the calendar.
ReplyDeleteTony, it is just so tragic that they accept the secular aspects but sidestep the real meaning. Good to hear from you.
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