Christmas Lament

The weekend before Christmas I attended a holiday concert.  The band leader introduced one song, sung in another language, saying it was so sad he didn’t want to tell us what it was about.  My spirit breathed in the still moment, lullaby melody haunting the sanctuary.  It felt so right, that amid the songs of joy and hope and triumph there would be a few that take time to sense the sadness. 

A little girl looks at the wise men figurines from the nativity set, and tells me part of the Christmas story.  She says that the mean king wanted the kings from the East to tell him if they found the star-heralded infant they sought.  He didn’t want to worship the Boy, like he said; he wanted to assassinate Him.  And my little friend and I keep talking about the story, part we usually leave out of advent calendars and candlelight services: that though God’s plan went forward in the family exiled to Egypt, many little boys were slaughtered by Herod.  As prophesied in Jeremiah, Rachel wept for her children, and would not be comforted. 

There is hope.  And hope is terribly needed.  The world is dark.  Kings kill.  Babies die.  Sin persists.  Faith wanes.  The sadness is real.  And hope belongs there.  It doesn’t erase the pain; it sits with it in the dust, and then raises it up. 

Jesus weeps outside his friend’s tomb, before He calls him forth. 

I spend hours searching for Christmas laments.  I am intentional about seizing the wonder and beauty and joy arising from this Light come into the world.  But I relate to the burdening grief in this fallen place, sympathize with a bereft woman keening beneath the Christmas stars in Bethlehem.  Dear friends suffer also, personal events in their own stories not so far away as the homeland of David.  In Christmas there is a place for them, a place even for their aching.  I want to look at it.  I want to seek the whole truth unshrinking, though on my weary knees - and see the God who belongs there, too. 

To God be all glory.

Christmas Etymologies 2013

I don't know how "tan" developed into "toe" in the name for that plant you kiss under at Christmastide.  But in Old English, "mistletoe" was spelled mistiltan from the root "missel", basil or the plant we know as mistletoe, and "tan", which means twig.

Speaking of "Christmastide", the second half of that compound word is something we usually associate with the ocean and beach.  "Tide" arrived in English, however, associated with time.  In Old English it meant a period of time, from an ancient root having to do with dividing out a portion.  By the 1300's we were using it to refer to the water levels on the shore, from the idea of "high tide" and "low tide" being at specific times.  Old English had the word heahtid but at that time, it would have referred to a day like Christmas, "festival, high day".

"Tidings", as in "tidings of comfort and joy", has a long history, early diverging from the word "tide".  For a thousand years it has meant an announcement of an event.  It comes from the Old Norse adjective tiðr, "occurring".  Going just a bit further back, this word joins with the roots of "tide".  

The debate rages about celebrating Christ's birth near the solstice, when the Northern hemisphere has the shortest day of the year.  Pagan observances of this event involved the expectation for the winter to end and life to begin again.  Israel, where Jesus was born, is in the Northern Hemisphere, but that is no proof that his birthday was in that season.  Regardless of the actual event, we have placed Christmas at what is considered by astronomers to be the beginning of winter.  In Celtic nations and Scandinavia, the solstice is considered to be "midwinter", an interpretation I prefer, agreeing with meteorologists' definition of winter as the coldest months, normally all of December, January, and February here on this half of the globe.  Etymologists don't know where the word "winter" comes from, but they have a couple ideas.  One is that it comes from a word for "wet", *wed-/*wod-/*ud-, which makes sense in more temperate climates.  Or it might be from the word for "white", *wind-.  Obviously this latter is more relevant to the ice and snow of the cold season.  

"In the Bleak Midwinter" is a Christmas carol written by Christina Rosetti by 1872, celebrating Jesus' humbling Himself:

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

The word "bleak" meant "pale, whitish, blonde" in the Old Norse whence it arrived in English circa A.D. 1300.  Before that, the words origins meant "shining, white" or "burning".  The same root gave us the word "black", from the color things get after they have been burned.  By 1530 it also carried the meaning "windswept, bare".

Such conditions alongside the green of fir trees, or the geothermal fields of Iceland are signature beauties of Scandinavia, and even the northeast coast of the United States.  There is something wonderful about life continuing amid hostility, be it from weather, self-righteous religious leaders, or power-paranoid kings like Herod.  Winters, and birthing in a stable when You're really King of Heaven and Earth, can be harsh.  "Stark" is an Old English word stearc with an extensive definition: "stiff, strong, rigid, obstinate; stern, severe, hard; harsh, rough, violent".  One of the things I love about places like Iceland is how the difficult climate and landscape have revealed the stern character of the people who live there.  But how do you embrace strength in hardship without losing tenderness and humility?

Jesus, the mighty Son of God, gave us an example when He was born a needy babe, pursuing with perfect resolution His cause of love, though He walked through the wilderness and built a whip to drive money-changers out of the temple, and though He submitted Himself to face a severe death by crucifixion.  "Babe" was likely imitative of infants babbling, though in most cases this became a word like baba for "peasant woman" or "mother", as Etymonline.com cites John Audelay, c. 1426: "Crist crid in cradil, 'Moder, Baba!' "  Old English used the word "child" to refer to infants.  It seems originally to refer to the relation between the little one and his or her mother, as the "fruit of her womb".  The significance of the mother's role in bearing the child is also seen in surviving Scottish "bairn", Old English bearn, from a root meaning "carry".  

"Incarnation" is not an English word; it has it's roots in Latin: caro or carnis means "flesh", so it is litearally "being made flesh".  This is the mysterious truth described by CS Lewis: 

...the Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him. 

and by the Apostle Paul: 

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

To God be all glory.  

The History of Answers, Fixes, and Solutions

I was thinking about our term in simple math for the part of an equation following the equals sign.  Generally, we call this the “answer”.  In specific cases, it is the “solution”.  Somewhat familiar with alternate definitions, I began to wonder how these words came to be applied to math.  Here is what I found from the Online Etymology Dictionary about their origins. 

Answer – is an Old English word meaning “swearing against”, suggesting a sworn statement rebutting a charge.  As early as the 1300’s it was used to mean an answer to a problem as well. 

Solution – In the late 1300’s we received this word from the French – or possibly directly from Latin, solutionem “a loosening or unfastening”.  

Remedy – comes from a Latin root meaning literally “to heal” with the “intensive prefix” re- , meaning “fully” or “again.  This definition, “make whole” is a common definition of old words for “heal, cure”, along with “tend to” or “conjure” or “ward off, defend”. 

Cure –  *kois- is the suggested Proto-Indo-European root, meaning “be concerned”.  In the late 1300’s it began to be used for “take care of”. 

Aid – came to English around 1400 by way of the French, originally from the Latin adiutus “give help to”. 

Help – is the Old English helpan “help, support, succor; benefit, do good to; cure, amend”.  Our modern word actually sounds more like the Proto-Indo-European root, *kelb-.

Amend – The verb form is now generally supplanted by the shortened form, mend.  But this word has been in English since the 1200’s, “to free from faults, rectify”.  It comes from the Latin prefix ex- and Proto-Indo-European root *mend- “physical defect, fault”.   

Fix – is another word likely originating in the Proto-Indo-European, the root *dhigw- “to stick, to fix”.  The sense of “repair” dates from 1737. 

Antidote – comes ultimately from the Greek antidoton, literally “given against”. 

To God be all glory.