Santa, Covid, and the Meaning of Marriage
While getting out of my car today I noticed our neighbors struggling with their upstairs windows — stuck, having not been opened in half-dozen years. Then I saw them — big beautiful Christmas wreaths being attached to the outside of each window. I yelled, “You guys are going big-time this year!” “You bet!,” they answered back. In some states — because of Covid — they called off Thanksgiving, but as someone has said succinctly and tenaciously, “They ain’t canceling Christmas!” To hold down people at Christmas is like disallowing Super Bowl victors to celebrate. Speaking of which, the usual drama will no doubt be missing in the upcoming championship game. Oh, but not Christmas drama! Held back for so long there’ll be more celebration than ever. Santa is immune to Covid-19. One way or another the Santa Syndrome (SS) — which this year has become the Santa Splurge Syndrome (SSS) — will emerge everywhere. Just a moment ago a news broadcast said many people who’ve always had false trees are buying real ones — a true sign of SSS. Whatever Christmas means to people, it’s expression will be big-time this month. And what does Christmas mean to people? No, not what it’s supposed to mean, but what does it mean?
The human being was built to celebrate — not all the time but periodically. If there is no occasion we’ll invent one. By celebrate is meant; a festival, a time with loved ones, feasting, singing, dancing, fire (or lights), and lavish decorations. Independence Day and Christmas are distanced so far on the calendar that we’ve used Halloween to tidy us over — celebrations of which have become extravagant. In one yard I saw a 30-foot (square) spider web sporting a dozen evil-looking expired creatures — all under bright spotlights. In times past and still today in several countries the Winter Solstice is the biggie. In ancient times as the days shortened it was thought the sun would keep slipping away until daylight vanished altogether. So “Hurray!” when the sun stopped (solstice) and starting returning. It was a time to celebrate! And they did. At ancient Stonehenge, England, the builders set the huge stones to capture the sun’s rays at the split-second moment of Summer Solstice. We saw crowds and concessions gathering to celebrate as we left it — our final tourist site — on June 21 for our flight back to the U.S. after celebrating our 50th Anniversary.
The coincidence of the Winter Solstice (around December 21) and the Church’s desire to celebrate its beginning has resulted in a cacophony of sights and sounds making it hard to nail down from which tradition came what. Historians tell us that a Roman emperor worshipped Sol Invictus (the invincible sun god) and declared December 25 a holiday in SI’s honor. What does December 25 (and all that leads to it) mean to you? Friends, family, feasts, songs, sounds, Santa, lights, lavish decorations, memories? For Mimi and me, we like it all. That’s because of what’s at the core of Christmas for us — even though many just chalk it up to the human need to periodically go crazy. Lest you say, “Now here comes the sermon,” consider this:
Earth is really a tiny pale blue speck — indiscernible from our nearest star (Proxima Centauri) even if an observer there were to use a powerful telescope. How far is that star? Voyager 1 left Earth in 1977. (It not long ago left our solar system taking a snapshot of Earth as it left. In that image Earth is the size of the period at the end of this sentence.) Voyager 1 is traveling at 38,000 mph. If aimed at Proxima Centauri it would reach it in 73,000 years! There are over 200 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. There are about two trillion galaxies in the skies of the cosmos. How big is God? God is enthroned so high he has to stoop to see the sky (Jerusalem Translation of Psalm 113:5,6). This immeasurable God of ours who made it all (and us) became a tiny human on our blue speck one day over two thousand years ago — a day we call Christmas. He came because he loves each one of us too much to lose us. Now that’s worth celebrating!!!
There’s a parallel between the meaning of Christmas and the meaning of marriage. What’s the meaning of marriage? Companionship, trust, fun, adventure, children, conjugal joy, fulfillment, family, happiness? All that and more is what Mimi and I think. What’s the core, though, of marriage? It’s almost as amazing as our Creator in a feed-trough. Genesis 1-2 says after creating light, vegetation, the constellations, sea creatures, birds, animals, and humankind, God said in effect: This is good, but not quite good enough. That’s when he designed marriage and then said: This is very good! Marriage is unmistakably the zenith of God’s creation. Marriage reflects God more than anything else on Earth. That’s the meaning of marriage — to glorify God. How does a marriage do that? Gold is not tarnishable but it can have impurities. So marriage. Like gold, the purer the more the reflection. Our marriage will never be 24 karats but Mimi and I are forever working at it and our life verse is Psalm 34:3: Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together.
