“The deepest dark is not the place where grace goes to die but the deepest dark is the place where grace goes to be reborn.” — Alexander Shaia
Many Indigenous cultures around the world for millennia have celebrated the winter solstice. It is a way to reflect on one’s reliance on the earth and the cycles of the seasons. It keeps one grounded and embodied in oneself; in recognition of one’s connection to the natural world.
The Celts were one such people who celebrated the winter solstice. They were Indigenous to a large region of Northern Europe that extended from Turkey all the way to Ireland, in the land north of the Roman Empire. They celebrated the winter solstice by decorating a large oak tree in the center of their communities with leftover fruit from the harvest season, as this fruit represented the abundance the sun provided from longer/warmer days in the summer (the mighty oak was sacred to the Celts and they’d often build their settlements surrounding one). The Celts celebrated the winter solstice on December 24th because this was the day that they could see with the naked eye that the sun was “rebirthing” its cycle, and that the days were beginning to get longer.
When Christianity eventually spread north to the Celts, they were immediately drawn to the beautiful truth of this celebration. Rather than condemning the Celts as heathens and heretics, Christianity embraced this tradition. They recognized the tree as the Tree of Life from the biblical story of the Garden of Eden. They also connected the rebirthing of the sun to Christ Himself, who resurrected from the dead after laying three days in the grave. December 24th became known as the Feast of Adam and Eve. Eventually, the Christian feast of Christmas was moved to December 25th (it was originally celebrated on January 6th), to be the day after the Feast of Adam and Eve. This was in order to keep it in close proximity to the winter solstice, in order to celebrate the birth of Christ as the light who shone into the darkness of the world. Together, these two feasts represent an anticipation of the light that comes — a light that is to be birthed out of darkness. It’s not an avoidance of darkness; rather one must go through the darkness. It is a labour pain that cannot be avoided, but the promise of new life is on the other side. Creation reflects this wisdom and offers this teaching to those who are willing to observe it.
This Christmas of 2020, in the twilight of an extraordinarily difficult year, we have been swimming in a sea of darkness. Many of us have tried to avoid it; some have responded in anger, or in resistance to the “new normal”, while others have grieved deeply the loss of their personal freedoms. For some people, they may have felt like they were literally drowning in a sea of darkness. Many of us lost jobs. Many of us couldn’t pay bills. Many of us encountered deep loneliness and depression. And many of us lost family members.
The beauty of the Feast of Adam and Eve is that it allows us to be connected to our pain. Whether it is walking through the deepest dark, or the shadow of death, or the darkest night of the soul, we hold onto the knowledge that the darkest days are tied to the winter solstice. And as the days begin to get longer, the snow melts and creation itself comes out of hibernation. We cannot avoid the difficulty, the pain, the anguish, or the longing. But we can go through it, and we can know that there’s light on the other side. Christ Himself endured the darkness, and He overcame the deepest dark of death itself. He walks alongside us through all the darkest spaces of life. He will never leave us nor forsake us. Through the deepest dark, a grace is rebirthed in us through Christ — a new dawn.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.”
John 1:5 NLT