Strange Christmas Mythology:
Saturnalia, Santa, and Odin
The myths and stories surrounding Christmas origins are bizarre to say the least. Christmas, as we know it today is entitled “the season of giving”. If you are more of a non-conformist, you’d call it a special once-in-a-year holiday; if you are anti-sentiment, it would be just another vacation and if you are an overly skeptical individual, you’d call it the most consumerist time of year.
Regardless of
whatever you call it, this season is ultimately brought about by one reason and
that is to commemorate the birth of a child named Jesus.
It is true however
that the holiday (Holy Day) was only celebrated nearly 300 hundred years after
Christ’s time on the earth. It is also true that there are some weird pagan
customs and traditions that have been mixed with this and sprung into the
season that we now know as Christmas.
The following are
examples of such things that have nothing at all to do with the birth of Jesus but
because of tradition and customs throughout the ages, have been interwoven and
incorporated into Christ’s incarnation celebration.
Stuff like caroling
for neighbors (with the word ‘Carol’ originally meaning to dance around to
something in a circle like a cast idol), kissing under the mistletoe (an ancient
druid fertility symbolic act), decorating your home with wreaths and Christmas
trees (which was a Norse way of dedicating offerings to the tree’s “spirit”),
even putting up socks for a big generous guy to climb through your chimney into
your house to give you gifts--if you’ve been good all year--are the stuff of
legend and actually have pre-Christian origins.
Santa
Many of us attribute
the Christmas season of gift-giving to none other than Santa Claus, the jolly
big dude on the slay magically pulled across the sky by flying reindeer to give
gifts to good children. This is all a marketing ploy by one of your favorite long-time
brands (author sips on his glass of Coca Cola). Santa may have actually had his
originas to Saint Nicholas of Myra to be exact.
This guy was
canonized as a miracle worker Archbishop who lived roughly around 300 A.D. He
was well known for his charity towards the poverty-striken people of his
region. And contrary to popular depictions of Old Saint Nick, he was quite a
zealous man who had a fiery passion for defending Christ’s deity and upbringing
true doctrine to the church.
It was in the Nicene
Council that the debate about Jesus Christ’s divinity arose when two camps
battled it out to find out which holds true: whether Jesus was half man and
half God therefore not equal to God—as one camp claimed, or whether he was
fully man and fully God—as Nicholas and his camp adamantly defended. He was so
furious to the heretical claims of his opponents that he slapped and beat them
for it; he was of course detained but not long after released when other
bishops claimed to have had a dream showing that Nicholas had indeed been
correct and that God was telling them to release Nicholas from prison and place him back into his rightful position. He
was truly a staunch defender of Christ—far from what we see him today as a
push-over marketing ploy wearing red overalls.
Saturnalia
December 25 has a
certain ring to it; usually the day that we celebrate Christmas, it is a day of
feasting, opening gifts, and enjoying time with family.
In historical origin,
however, the date was considered to be a major holiday of the Roman Empire. As
the name suggests, it is a celebration glorifying the god Saturn (based on the
sun’s movement in the sky and the winter solstice). It was usually to honor the
yearly harvest since Saturn was attributed to wealth, agriculture, and plenty;
the celebrations would usually last a whole month and would include excessive
feasting, sexual carousing, law-opposing, speech-giving, and gift-giving. The
Persians, at this time, also celebrated their feasts in honor of the god
Mithras, who was attributed similarly to Saturn.
The original date of
Christ’s birth however is highly disputed but scholars believe that it is
somewhere between April to October, with most of them concluding that it was
likely in September. They argue that if it were in December, Bethlehem would
have a climate that is too cold for animals to be grazing and would have
below-freezing temperatures for people to be roaming outside at night. Luke 2:8
points that the shepherds were “keeping watch over their flock by night” which
would probably suggest that they were indeed outside with their flocks and the
weather was not as cold as compared to December (where they would shelter and
keep their flocks inside if it were so).
Odin
This holiday is
likewise also called the Yuletide season. Ever wonder what that actually meant?
The term is sourced from the indigenous Germanic month Ærra Jéola (Before Yule)
or “Jiuli”. Even before the story of Nicholas, we have the norse god Odin
(popularly depicted by Anthony Hopkins in the movie Thor).
He was known as the
white bearded “All-father” and in the middle of winter (likely in December), he
would lead a “wild hunt” during the night of Yule—and guess what? He would be
flying while doing so and giving gifts to his faithful worshipers while slaying
and casting fear into the multitudes who were not loyal to him.
Sounds vaguely
familiar?
The Strange, The Bizarre, The Other Worldly
The origins for
characters, customs, and stories in the Christmas fable have gone far: from the
noble to the outright bizarre, this holiday as we know it, has been interjected
with so many pagan and secular themes and traditions.
Still the same
though, as Christians, we ought to bring forth the true meaning and value of
the season. We are somewhat called to be like Nicholas, who though acting
strangely different from his counterparts, embodied the spirit of true giving
and charity because he knew that he had been given much. He was indeed a
defender of Christ, both in word and deed even when he was deemed to be defiant
of the socially acceptable. How can you be an out-of-the-ordinary herald of
Christ this season?
Like Saturnalia, we
could be celebrating this vacation season with revelry, material things, and
buy into the whole consumerist ruse. Or we could staunchly refuse to be gilded
by all of it and celebrate to the glory of God; we could celebrate, eat, drink,
talk, pray, share life, and enjoy merriment all unto the Lord even when it is
considered bizarre by others. We could perhaps take an inventory of our
“harvest” this year and realize that it was all given to us by God; the
response is true thankfulness and deep gratitude.
Odin is an embodiment
of a typical deity who would reward those who are good and punish those who are
enemies. Most of us would still have the same concept of God, who is a far
distant deity, ruling from afar and once a year during December, all of a
sudden makes an appearance to give you good stuff for the good things you did
all year or give you what you deserve for the bad things that you did all year.
The God-Man Jesus
The God-man Jesus is
far beyond any man-made concept of a deity like the above. He does good even
for his enemies and urges his followers to:
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew 5:44-45)
That is utterly incomparable
to any other character, custom, tradition, or marketing ploy. To give something
to a person that does not deserve it. To afford merit to someone who does not warrant
merit is unthinkable. But that is how God defines Christmas. He gave his only
Son Jesus for us sinners who don’t deserve it. We were meant for a just
damnation but instead were given gracious mercy. We were given the perfect gift
of Jesus and the salvation he gives to all who believe by faith.
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