The most ancient records show people with great reverence for the sun and on the bleakest day of the year, to bring good cheer to the world, they light bonfires, tell stories and drink ale.
The ancient Romans celebrate the rebirth of the year with "Saturnalia." a seven day festival turning all of the rules upside down. Men dress as women, women as men; masters serve as servants who become the head of the house for one week, and there's lots of sex. Houses are decorated with greenery, candles lit, there are parades and gifts exchanged.
The Druids cut mistletoe and burn a yule log to conquer the darkness, ward off evil spirits and bring good luck for the coming year.
Yule means "Holy Night" in ancient Anglo-Saxon.
Long after these traditions comes the birth of Jesus and it's just not a big deal.
Two of the four Gospels don't even mention his birth because the death of Jesus was the important thing to remember, not when he was born.
Two-hundred-twenty-one years later, a Monk named Sextust Julius Africianus claims Jesus was born on December 25. Before then most thought his birthday to be in the Spring because of the herding of Sheep in the Christmas stories.
A hundred years later Emperor Constantine makes Christianity the official state religion, choosing December 25 as a holiday as a way to roll the ancient celebrations into one, thereby eliminating other faiths.
Still Christmas simply wasn't as important as Easter until modern times.
Almost all of today's Christmas were made up fairly recently through poems, books, songs and marketing campaigns to take advantage of or exploit the holiday for profit.
Making it more so is Christmas doesn't become a huge celebration in America until 1870 when it's recognized by the Government as a national holiday.
That's right, Christmas as we now know it is only about 150 years old.
It's a funny history lesson isn't it?
The early Church tries very hard to ban Pagan customs and convert everyone to Christianity but fail because everyone loved the Winter Solstice celebrations. When Government takes over Christmas, a new festival honoring the birth of Jesus Christ is implemented absorbing all of the popular aspects of ... yep ... Pagans.
Holly, exchanging pres,ents, the yule tide log, mistletoe, wreaths, caroling, candles and others all are Christmas traditions were kidnapped from older religions.
So that's how we got Christmas.
Where's the miracle then?
Advent is from the Greek "parousia" meaning "arrival" and was picked up by the Church to mean ... the arrival of Christ.
To the early Church, there are actually three arrivals ... the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem ... his acceptance into the heart of those who believe in him ... and the Second Coming.
It's that last one that's most important but we've screwed up what the Second Coming is supposed to be with scare tactics to convert people to Christianity lest they be left behind.
Just like the Gospel of Matthew later adds the story of the Wise Men searching for the New Born King by following their guts, represented in a Star shinning in the eastern sky, we have to be willing to follow our hearts to where Jesus is to be found.
If you're searching for the Savior in the midst of all of the craziness we've created for Christmas, here's my story.
On a hot August day Buena finally went to the doctor. There she discovered that the great stomach she carried around was not a stomach at all. It was cancer.
"We're sorry," said the doctor, "but it appears that because the cancer has progressed to the point that it has surgery is out of the question. There will be some medication that will help in the short term, but there is little that can be done medically over the long haul.
"What ya be saying?" she asks in her nasally rural Kentucky accent.
The doctor clears his throat and says, "You have about six weeks."
Buena lifts the Maxwell House coffee can toward her mouth and spits ... THE-WIT, POWEE ... and the sound echos down clean, antiseptic halls.
"We'll see," she tells him.
As with most everything else, she proves whatever people say about her wrong.
A few weeks after seeing the doctor that day, she becomes bed ridden, but lives well into March --- one last act of defiance against the medical establishment.
When people visit, the find her in good humor with Bible and Maxwell House coffee can near the bed. Sometimes we have to wait until she can past the blond curly hair wig to her bald head. Nevertheless she loves visitors and always asks about Church.
The Chapel, where I'm the excuse for a minister, consists of five little old ladies, some Seminarians, kids from the projects and about twenty prisoners who arrive under guard from the jail. It is a missionary outpost in the inner city for the mostly suburban Southern Baptists.
She often asks visitors to act as a carrier for her and, after making certain none of her family's watching, she opens the desk by the bed and takes out two twenty dollar bills.
"This be my offerin'," she explains. "be sure to tell Rev tat I'mma tithing my Bingo winnings."
Buena loves Bingo and long ago arrived at the conclusion that tithing the winnings helps the Lord help her win more.
"Buena," the Rev sometimes said, "you're not supposed to play Bingo. It's gambling."
"Naw, it's alright, she spit, "so long as you remember to tithe."
When the Christmas Season descends upon the Church, the congregation gathers for the celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus, after sponsoring a toy sale, two hundred Christmas baskets for the hungry and a special holiday meal for homeless people. Now it's time to celebrate.
After a potluck meal, they gather around a piano to sing Christmas carols. Homeless men sing beside students and the five old women. Whites drape arms around blacks, the wealthy hug the destitute and the dividing walls of hostility crumble on this special day.
After much singing, it's suggested everyone walk to Buena's house to sing her some carols. Everyone thinks it an excellent idea so the entire Church leave the building, marching down the block, around the corner to the tiny shotgun house with red shingles crafted to resemble bricks are tacked to the exterior.
We wait and wait for Buena to put the wig on before entering the bedroom.
Maybe twenty of us crowd around the bed and Buena's obviously pleased so many have come though she tries, of course, to not show it.
We sing some songs and she sings along in the nasally, rural Kentucky annunciation.
"What's your favorite?" we ask.
"Silent Night," she spits without hesitation.
We sing, "Silent Night, Holy night ..." and it is, with a clear, cold star studded night and we feel good about how we are spending it.
Suddenly though, with us crowded around her bed, tears begin to roll down Buena's face.
The Church, which most consider to be dying, sings carols to a departing woman and when we sing, "Sleep in heavenly peace ... sleep in heavenly peace" ... salt water erupts from every eye.
After we sing, a'll is quiet too as no one knows what to say.
After these holy moments, the fellowship of believers file out one at a time, pausing to hug her goodbye or kiss the tobacco stained mouth.
Down the frozen sidewalk that leads back to a building, no one in the Church says a word.
In those days when I was at a tiny, broken down Church in the inner city of Louisville, Kentucky there was the tradition of bringing Dolly Madison cakes on the night "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was broadcast because I never could figure out a better way to explain what Christmas is all about.
Munching on Raspberry Zingers, Chocolate Cupcakes and Donut Gems, we'd listen to Linus begin his explanation be saying, "Lights please."
He goes on to retell the Gospel of Luke's version of Jesus being born.
It's the "Lights please" that always gets me.
Please God, shine some light on what you mean ... how I'm supposed to know you ... what I'm supposed to do?
I found the meaning of Christmas that night in Buena's dusty, tobacco stained bedroom.
And I've found Jesus in the craziest of other places too, forever shocking me that he's been here all along, waiting on me and that's the point of Advent.
Jesus already came.
Long ago he grew up and left the manger and the point is not celebrating that he showed up all those years ago, or how we observe his coming, but to find him now.
Christmas isn't celebrated in the past because that's not where Jesus is any more but he's in dark, remote, funny places as obscure as Bethlehem and the best way to commemorate the Season is to join him.
The point of it is he came to join us.
But the question has always been whether or not we going to join him.
