In The Bleak Midwinter

About a week ago, I was sitting in church, trying not to drift off from a busy week of choir performances, finals, and to top it all off, the ACT, when the pastor made a comment that jolted me out of my daze and caught my attention. Apologizing for bursting the bubble of many of the congregation, he stated that we don’t actually know when Jesus was born. It could just have easily been on a hot summer’s evening than the cold, wintery night we so love to imagine. As someone who loves the traditional, accepted vision of Christmas - the warm stable, a haven from the winter cold, the breath of the lamb and oxen clouding the frosty air, shepherds traversing the hard, frost-bitten ground to the manger scene - this simple statement bothered me more than I let on. In my mind, Christmas is a winter holiday. This is a firm, set-in-stone fact; the sky is blue, the sun is hot, Jesus was born in the middle of winter. However, when I really let myself consider the truth of our pastor’s statement, I realized that there really is nothing in the Bible that says Jesus was born exactly on December 25, 1 AD. So why do we celebrate Christmas in winter?

As I thought about this, the Christmas hymn “O Come O Come Emmanuel” came to mind. I’ve always loved the haunting melody and profoundly hopeful lyrics that perfectly capture the deep sadness of sin and the hope of redemption the Israelites surely felt as they awaited the coming of their Savior, God With Us. Before Jesus came on the scene, Israel had experienced 400 years of silence. God spoke through the last prophet, Malachi, and then… nothing. 400 years of nothing. Hence, the first few lines of the song:

O Come O Come Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

However, God was still working, waiting for the opportune time to send his son. The hymn continues:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Has come to thee O Israel.

After the 400 years, in a small town called Bethlehem, God was suddenly closer to His people than ever before. No longer would he speak through prophets and judges - the Lord was finally with his people. The draught was over.

In one of my favorite series, the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, the land of Narnia experiences a similar darkness, caught in an eternal winter - a winter without Christmas, no less. However, the minute Aslan comes on the scene, things begin to change. The snow and ice starts to melt, as Aslan’s prescence brings about the long-awaited spring.

Much of Lewis’s Narnia was an allegory, with Aslan representative of Christ; I think it’s significant that winter turns to spring the minute Aslan enters Narnia. Narnia’s winter is distinctly reflective of Israel’s period of waiting, broken by the coming of Jesus.

As in Narnia, Israel’s draught could be compared to a winter of sorts, one that began all the way back in Eden, where everything went terribly wrong. Jesus’s first coming was a promise - that in the cold of winter, his people could look forward to the day that sin and death would be no more - that winter would give way to spring. That, I believe, is the reason that Christmas is a winter holiday. Not only do we look back on Jesus’s birth, when he ended the 400 year winter - but we who live in the already and the not yet can look forward to his second coming, when winter will be defeated once and for all and we will live in an eternal spring.

And so, as we celebrate Christmas this winter - as the temperatures outside plunge into the teens, the animals hide, and everything becomes cold and quiet - we can look forward to the day when the sun will come out again and the earth will revive. One day, Jesus will return, ending winter once and all. So in the bleak midwinter, we have hope.

Summer with it's golden rays, it's clear blue skies, it's lengthy days,
has long since passed and gone away, and fall has come and passed the same.

The earth grows cold, the nights grow long; the world is now in winter's bond,
Now all is silent, all is veiled, by icy sheets of snow and hail.

It seems like the life has all retreated, the green grass, the flowers by cold, defeated,
It seems like all will stay this way, cold and silent and dark and grey.

But even so, this hope still rings, that winter will one day turn to spring.

God reminds us with winter's days, that Hope, once silent, lay in a grave,
then rising again, a conquering King, the winter of death He turned to spring.

Though the world's still cold and veiled by sin, and waiting for spring to come again,
even as we wait for His kingdom to come, we have the hope that He's already won.

Yes, Winter's still here, but the hope still rings, that winter will soon be turned to spring.

That day will come, and it's coming soon, when winter's days are ended,
As people reunite with their King, the broken bonds are mended.

The veil of clouds and ice unravels, the curse of sin is undone,
The King of Kings comes forth in victory, we know that He has won.

Flowers spring forth and bloom in all colors, the trees are bright and green,
The sleeping world wakes up again, redeemed by its Savior and King.

The darkness that haunted our lives till now is broken by sunlight's rays,
This and more, we're waiting for, when winter turns to spring.

Galations 4:4-5