[ deck the halls by graham kendrick ]

Just because it was originally pagan doesn’t man we can’t reap a Christmas harvest, ugues Graham Kendrick.

If the last two Christmases are anything to go by, part of our Christmas media fare will again be the debate about the origins of Christmas. The cry of the Christians will be ‘put Christ back into Christmas’, the increasingly-vocal pagan lobby will respond ‘We were there first! You Christians stole it from us!’ In fact as far as 25 December is concerned, the pagans were there first.

According to the Roman calendar, 25 December was ‘Sol Invictus’ - the day the sun reached its weakest point and began to regain its strength. As part of their rituals, countless candles would be carried in processions, lighting up temples and bathing entire cities in their glow. However we have to go back 4,000 years to the Sumerian civilisation to find what is probably the earliest source of Christmas customs. The chief god worshipped in Sumer was named Marduk, who obtained his superior position by winning a great battle with the goddess monster Tiamat who ruled the underworld kingdom of Chaos. The legend was that Marduk killed her and made the world out of her corpse. Yuk! The Sumerians believed that winter was a sign that Marduk’s world was running down and Chaos was returning to take revenge for Tiamat’s death.

A 12-day festival, Zagmuk, was established to persuade Marduk to return to the underworld and fight the power of Chaos, or the cycle of seasons would not be renewed. Zagmuk began with the people purifying themselves from the sins of the previous year by ritually transforming them to the Sumerian King who was to die for their atonement. The spirit of the dead king would then accompany Marduk and fight with him for the new year. The king, however, was not quite so willing to give up his life; instead he would select a criminal to be a substitute king for the duration of the festival and dress him in kingly robes. To ensure the success of the deception, the population would worship this mock king for several days, after which the substitute was stripped of his borrowed royal robes and killed. After much prayer for the success of the ensuing struggle with the demons of Chaos, the Sumerians would turn to celebration. New Year wishes would be exchanged along with gifts, and bonfires would blaze as mock battles dramatised the great battle of the underworld.

Saturnalia and Zagmuk are only two of the many ancient practises which have influenced the celebrations which happen around 25 December. Holly, ivy, fir trees, evergreens, mistletoe and Yule logs all have their origins in pagan festivals. So it was into a pagan setting that Christ appeared.

For a long time the early Christians barely took notice of his birth date, preferring to emphasise his resurrection, and it was not until somewhere between AD 325 and 350 that 25 December was officially designated as a Church festival. The old pagan festivals were Christianised, retaining more than a little syncretism as the common people found their old superstitions difficult to let go.

I believe the debate about who had the festival first is a total irrelevance. Just because something came sooner does not mean necessarily that it is better. Early Britons indulging in ritual human sacrifice may be authentic, but it is not a tradition we want to recover. Compare instead the values which the Zagmuk festival celebrated with the values of the Christian Christmas. The Sumerian king chose not only to save his own life but to take someone else’s in his place. By contrast the sinless son of God, having laid aside his heavenly majesty, chose a life of humility and servanthood among the common people. Finally, he laid down his own life in order to atone for the sins of the world and in the process was exchanged for a criminal and murderer, Barrabas, who was set free.

By all means let’s concede that there is a mish-mash of superstition and ancient customs lying behind the festival of 25 December. But then let us bring to the centre of the debate the Christ who outshines, outloves, outgives and supercedes anything which came before or could ever come after.

These are my three ‘R’s to help me through the Christmas season. Reclaim: let’s reclaim everything which celebrates the story of the true historical Christ and shout it from the roof-tops, live it, share it, talk about it around our Christmas meals and among our friends. Refresh: the truths of the Incarnation are the essence of the true wonder of Christmas. Let’s meditate upon the humility of this God who was willing to become a speck of embryo in order to save us from our sins. Reap: despite being buried under layers of commercialism and sentiment, Christmas is still the one time of the year when popular tradition allows us to talk about who Jesus is and why he came. It is also a time of family stress, financial pressure and loneliness. Let’s take the maximum opportunity in our family gatherings, office parties and special concerts and services to reap a Christmas harvest, even out of pagan soil.