Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent.  Rather than writing another article on this topic, I will point you to an  article that I wrote in 2007.  This article has been one of the most popular ones on my blog, with many readers each year when Lent draws near.

Valentine’s Day is a celebration of romantic love, usually accompanied by an exchange of cards, flowers and candy.  On several occasions as I was doing my Valentine’s shopping I found myself in a checkout line with several men each buying flowers or candy for his wife or girl friend.  I think that this must be one of the biggest days of the year for sellers of flowers.  An estimated 1 billion cards are sent each year, compared to 2.6 billion at Christmas.

Who was St. Valentine?

Why would I write about Valentine’s Day in a series on Christian holidays?  The older name for “Valentine’s Day” is “Saint Valentine’s Day.”  Who was Saint Valentine and what does he have to do with the day we celebrate in his name?  Was this originally a Christian holiday?

There were three martyrs named Valentine honored by the ancient church, all of whom are supposed to have died on Feb. 14.  It is seem likely that the three were confused and assigned to the same date.  The most well known of the three was Valentine of Rome, who was martyred in AD 269.   When pope Pope Gelasius I established Valentine’s Day in 496, he included Valentine among those  “… whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God.”  So even at that time not much was know about him.  Most of the stories about his life are of a relatively late date, and according to the Catholic Encyclopedia are “of no historical value.”

The most common legend is that Emperor Claudius II had forbidden the young men of Rome to marry because he thought that single men made better soldiers, and he needed a lot of soldiers.  Valentine defied this order by performing secret weddings for young people who wanted to marry, and eventually was caught.  He was executed when he refused to renounce his faith.

According to one legend, St. Valentine sent the first “Valentine” himself.  He is said to have become friends with the daughter of his jailor, and some say that he had healed her of blindness.  Before his death he is said to have written her a letter, and signed it “From your Valentine.”

The Roman Connection

Another strand of the history of this day is the Roman festival of Lupercalia.  This was a fertility festival dedicated to the Roman god Faunus, equivalent to the Greek god Pan, which was celebrated on Feb. 13-15.  According to legend, all the single women in a village would put their names on slips of paper into an urn, and the single men would each draw out a name.  The couple was then paired for a year.  When Pope Gelasius declared Feb. 14 Valentine’s Day around 496 the Roman “lottery” system for dating was banned as unchristian.

Have you ever wondered where Cupid came from?  He was the son of Venus and Mercury (Aphrodite and Hermes) and was the Roman god of erotic love and and beauty.  It seems that Roman culture has had a large influence on this day.

What can we Learn?

The legends about St. Valentine do not appear before the Middle Ages, so they do not provide any reliable historical information.  We do know that there was a martyr named Valentine, but we don’t really know anything about his life.  On the other hand, the Roman connection seems to have influenced this holiday a great deal.

Putting all of this together, it seems that the early church established a Christian alternative to a pagan festival in Rome.  Their goal was to steer people away from the sensual and erotic elements of the Roman feast and focus instead on a man who had given up his life for his faith.  But it seems that they were only partially successful, and the unwanted elements continued to creep back in.  The modern holiday takes much from pagan sources, and only its name from a Christian origin.

For further reading

• Valentine’s Day on history.com
• Wikipedia article on Valentine’s Day
• The history of Valentine’s Day (doesn’t mention the Roman connection)

Happy New Year!  I don’t usually make a big deal about New Year’s Day because it seems like a rather arbitrary line in the sands of time.  But the solar year is about 365.25 days long, so we need to set some point at which to acknowledge that we are beginning another year.  There are of course other places to draw the line.  Both the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) and Chinese New Year are based on the lunar calendar.

The beginning of a new year is a good time to look back on the past year and look forward to the new one.  I’m not very big on New Year’s resolutions, but one thing that I plan to continue this year is my daily Bible reading.  On Dec. 31 I finished reading the Bible in 2009, and on Jan. 1 I began my 2010 trek through the Bible.  This year I am doing my reading in the ESV Bible.

Reading the Bible on a consistent basis is essential for a healthy spiritual life.  You will never grow into a mature Christian without regularly taking in the spiritual food of God’s word.  If you have never read through the entire Bible, why not make 2010 the year in which you change that?  The plan that we are using in my church can be downloaded here. In this plan we read something from both the OT and NT every day. The chart on the web site is marked 2009, but actually you can use it for any non-leap year.

Consistent Bible reading is a habit well worth forming.  The first thing that I did on NewYear’s Day was to begin my 2010 reading.  It gave me a good feeling to get the new year started in the right way.  If you read the Bible every day for several months it can become a regular habit, and you will feel that something is missing if you don’t do your reading on a particular day.  I’m not talking about guilt resulting from a legalistic approach, but rather the feeling of missing out on something familiar and enjoyable.

The first time you read through the Bible you will find some things that are difficult to understand.  After you have read it through three or four times you will find it much less difficult. By the time you have read it through 15 or 20 times it will be like an old friend.

If you are just beginning to read the Bible I have some suggestions for you:

• Remember that some things will be unfamiliar to you.  After you have read through the Bible a few times it will be easier to understand what is going on.  You will begin to see the connections between different parts of Scripture.  The description of the new temple in Ezekiel is reminiscent of Exodus, and the end times prophecy in Daniel is closely related to Revelation.  Today’s reading in Matthew quotes a verse in Micah that I read last week.
• Feel free to skim quickly over the long genealogies or detailed descriptions of the construction of the temple.  These might be worth careful study at some point, but don’t feel guilty if you want to skim over them at this point.
• Try to understand individual passages in the context of the over-arching story of the Bible: Creation–Fall–Redemption.
• Don’t give up if you fall behind.  Reading the Bible in one year is a great goal, but the most important thing is to read it. If it takes you 1.5 or 2 years to get through the Bible that is fine.  Just read it!

Why not make 2010 the year in which you finally read the entire Bible? If you have already read through the Bible, why not do it again?

Have you ever wondered about the “twelve days of Christmas”?  In the U.S. many people think that the “twelve days of Christmas” are the 12 days leading up to Christmas.  Some holiday advertising makes this assumption.  But that is not correct.  Actually it refers the twelve days beginning with  Christmas and ending the day before the feast of Epiphany on January 6.   Today is the sixth day of Christmas.

Epiphany, which means “appearing,”  has been celebrated in the church from at least the 4th century.   This feast is usually connected to the visit of the Magi, although there is nothing in the Bible to indicate that the Magi appeared on Jan. 6.  In the Eastern Orthodox churches Epiphany is a celebration of Christ’s baptism and is considered the third most important feast of the year after Easter and Pentecost.

While we end our Christmas celebration after Dec. 25, in the Middle Ages they had 12 days of continuous feasting and merrymaking.  Sometimes small gifts were given to children each day.  The twelfth day of Christmas (Jan. 5) marks the end of the Christmas season and was the traditional day for taking down Christmas decorations.  Shakespeare’s play The Twelfth Night is named after this day.

The well known English Christmas carol The Twelve Days of Christmas has often perplexed people, but it makes more sense when we understand that it refers to the twelve days beginning with Christmas.  Although some have suggested that the song was a cryptic way to teach Christian doctrine in a time of persecution, that theory has a lot of problems. It is more likely that the song originated as a memory game played on the twelvth night.

Christians in past ages put a lot more emphasis on fasting and repentance than we do, but they also spent more time rejoicing. The OT believers also had feasts that went on for a week or more.  There is something to be said for God-centered rejoicing.  Perhaps we can reclaim the twelve days of Christmas, called Christmastide in the liturgical churches, as a religious holiday.  Now that we are done with the shopping frenzy and gift giving, we can pause to reflect and give thanks for what God has done for us in sending His Son.  Perhaps it is too soon to be done with Christmas just yet.

For further reading:

• The Twelve Days of Christmas (Dennis Bratcher)
• Wikipedia on The Twelve Days of Christmas
• The Season of Epiphany

There are many Christmas customs that have nothing to do with the birth of Christ.  What about the the most distinctive Christmas symbol of all, the “jolly old elf”?  Some Christians have pointed out rather ominously that “Santa” has exactly the same letters as “Satan.”  Santa, along with the associated gift giving frenzy, is a major distraction from the real meaning of Christmas.  Yet the name “Santa Claus” is derived from the Dutch for “Saint Nicholas.”  So what is the source of our idea of Santa?

Saint Nicholas was a bishop who lived in the 4th century in Asia Minor, which is the area that is now modern day Turkey.  We don’t know a lot about him, but some reports say that he attended the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.  He died on Dec. 6, 346 AD (some sources say 343).  According to the custom of the early church the date of his death, December 6, was established as Saint Nicholas Day.  There are many stories and legends about Nicholas protecting and caring for the poor, including giving gifts to poor children and tossing coins into the windows of poor families.  A famous story tells of how he tossed three small bags of gold into the window of the home of a poor family so that their three daughters would have the necessary dowry in order to be married.

But Santa is a long ways from Saint Nicholas.  Here are some of the other influences along the way:

Saint Nicholas in Europe

In Europe Saint Nicholas was know, among other things, as the benefactor of children.  He was portrayed as a bearded man wearing bishop’s robes.  Ideas about Saint Nicholas may have been influenced by beliefs about Odin, a major god of the Germanic people before Christianization.  He was pictured in the 13th century as riding an eight legged horse that could leap great distances.  Children would place their boots filled with carrots, straw and sugar near the chimney for Odin’s horse.  Odin would reward these children by replacing these things with gifts or candy.  This may have been the origin of the custom of hanging stockings by the fireplace for Santa to fill.  In Europe children were given sweets and small gifts on Saint Nicholas Day, Dec. 6.

In the Netherlands and Belgium Saint Nicholas was called “Sinterklaas.”  He was depicted in a bishop’s robes and wearing a bishop’s hat. The connection with Saint Nicholas is much more obvious in the Christmas traditions of Europe than in the United States.

The British Father Christmas was described from the 17th century onwards as a bearded man wearing a long green fur-lined robe.  Scrooge’s second visitor in Dicken’s A Christmas Carol is described as having a similar appearance. But now the red robe has become predominant due to the influence of the American Santa.

Santa in the United States

European immigrants to the United States brought with them their Christmas customs.  Dutch immigrants brought  Sinterklaas with them, which  was Americanized into “Santa Claus,” a name first used in the American press in 1773.  Other influences made Santa into a peculiarly American tradition.

The famous poem The Night Before Christmas (1823) added to considerably to the physical description of Santa, making him heavy set and smoking a pipe.  But he is described as an “elf,” his sleigh is called “miniature” and reindeer are described as “tiny.”

Commercial artist Thomas Nash further changed Santa’s appearance in his drawings from 1862-1886.  He made Santa into a full sized human rather than an “elf.”

A famous Saturday Evening Post cover in 1925 came up with a drawing of Santa that is closer to the modern image, including the red suit.

For 35 years beginning in 1931, Coca Cola used Santa in their ads.  This helped to solidify the image of a rotund Santa in a red suit in the American consciousness.

Conclusion

What shall we say about Santa Claus?  Although there is a Christian influence in the historical origin of Santa, the concept has changed so much that it seems impossible to try to make Santa into a Christian symbol.  Some have suggested that we celebrate the memory of Saint Nicholas on Dec. 6 and forget about Santa.  While we might not celebrate saints’ days, at least we can learn something important from Saint Nicholas.  This Christmas we could certainly do worse things than give gifts to the poor, especially poor children.

For further reading:

• Wikipedia article on Santa Claus
• Wikipedia article on Saint Nicholas
• The Origin of Santa Claus (Lutheran)
• Who is Saint Nicholas? (good source for Saint Nicholas legend)
• Saint Nicholas and the Origin of Santa Claus (Catholic)

In recent years it has become the norm in public to wish people “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.”  I can understand the concern about offending the minority who adhere to other religions or no religion at all.  But it is sad to see even this slight connection between our winter holiday and the birth of Christ severed.  A few years ago I was making a purchase in December and the cashier looked at me and said “Merry Christmas.”  I looked her in the eye and replied “Merry Christmas.”  Maybe she was going against company policy by using the “Christmas” word, but it made my day.

The health insurance debate should also consider the cost of life insurance.  Take a look at this email ad that I received this week:

A monthly premium of $100,000 seems like an awful lot to pay for $38.85 in life insurance.  I wonder if I can get some stimulus money to help pay my insurance bill?