Christmas and the New Birth

William P. McKenzie

One who was healed through the ministry of Christian Science at once connected her experience with divine Principle, declaring: "To me the most convincing proof that the healing came from God, was that I knew I was loving good. I had turned right around; had begun to be mentally regenerated." In such a connection we think at once of what our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, said in "Miscellaneous Writings" in regard to regeneration (p. 74): "This new-born sense subdues not only the false sense of generation, but the human will, and the unnatural enmity of mortal man toward God. It quickly imparts a new apprehension of the true basis of being, and the spiritual foundation for the affections which enthrone the Son of man in the glory of his Father."

Among the northern peoples winter was a time dark and dreary. So in mid-yule, when the winter solstice was past and the days began to lengthen, they welcomed with noisy feasting the turning of the year the the growing light. When we now speak of yuletide, the word refers to Christmas time, for the feast of the Nativity of Christ Jesus superseded the ancient festival. The historian Bede says that "the ancient peoples of the Angli began the year on the twenty-fifth of December, when we now celebrate the birthday of the Lord." This celebration came into fashion slowly, accompanied by much debate, the date of its establishment as Alexandria being given as 440 A. D., and the feast of the Nativity was held as a protest against those who denied the incarnation. In 1644 some English puritans by act of parliament forbade merriment or even religious celebrations on Christmas day, ordering the day to be kept as a fast, for even at that date many looked upon the festival as being an institution of heathen origin.

The question important for every man to consider is whether or not the Christ is born to him. Does he know of the disappearing of evil because consciousness has become cognizant of good? Is there the subsidence of willfulness, pride, envy, and covetous desire because the birth of true Christianity is going on through regeneration by the holy spirit of God?

Our Leader refers to Christmas as a time for remembering rather than for the confusion of merrymaking and the giving and receiving of souvenirs, which is a transferred custom from the Teutonic nations, since other nations chose the New Year for gift giving and congratulations. She says (Miscellany, p. 258): "The memory of the Bethlehem babe bears to mortals gifts greater than those of Magian kings,—hopes that cannot deceive, that waken prophecy, gleams of glory, coronals of meekness, diadems of love." And she further reminds us how "divinely beautiful are the Christmas memories of him who sounded all depts of love, grief, death, and humanity."

It is not, then, difficult to understand Mrs. Eddy's desire to be exempt from the turmoil of gift receiving and the balancing of obligations, the question of due acknowledgment or reciprocity, because to her Christianity had indeed arrived in full stature and power. And that activity of kindliness with which most people are able to glow for one day in the year,—this Christly good will was the motion of her thought the year through. She recognized the fragility of the material gift and the unreliability of mortal, human affection, and well understood what the all-satisfying spiritual gift is when the sinner is regenerated, and those weak and worn with illness find themselves quickened with a divine strength.

The apostle Peter reminded his Christian brethren of the important fact of their new birth when he wrote about their "being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." This familiar passage gains somewhat from a closer translation given in the words, "You are born anew of immortal, not of mortal seed, by the living, lasting word of God." The apostle lifts up this truth like a lantern on our path, and in its light we more clearly understand what Mrs. Eddy says concerning Christmas celebration. In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 262) her statement is: "I celebrate Christmas with my soul, my spiritual sense, and so commemorate the entrance into human understanding of the Christ conceived of Spirit, of God and not of a woman—as the birth of Truth, the dawn of divine Love breaking upon the gloom of matter and evil with the glory of infinite being." Further, as setting us an example by the expression of her own ideal, she says: "I love to observe Christmas in quietude, humility, benevolence, charity, letting good will towards man, eloquent silence, prayer, and praise express my conception of Truth's appearing."

William P. McKenzie.

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