The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. The Significance of Christmas from a Spiritual Scientific Point of View

[ 1 ] Many people today have no connection to Christmas other than lighting the Christmas tree. However, this Christmas tree is the most recent symbol of Christmas. Even in the regions where it first appeared, it has only been known for about a hundred years. It is not, as many believe, an ancient pagan tradition. As new as the Christmas tree is, the great human festival that now lies ahead of us is ancient, even primeval. As long as people on earth felt, sensed, and knew what leads beyond humanity to godhood, what elevates people above themselves, they have known this sublime Christmas celebration. In the Gospel of John there is a saying that can be taken as a leitmotif for the idea of Christmas: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Here we find the connection between two important annual festivals indicated. John himself testifies that he must decrease, while the other, Christ, grows. When the day is longest, it is St. John's Day. But behind the outer material appearance in its transience, something rises that is beautifully expressed in the Gospel of John with the words: “And the light shone in the darkness,” in the waning days of St. John. Within the darkness lives the light that is brighter and more alive than all material light phenomena—the spiritual light. And the life of the great light in the darkness is the content of the Christian Christmas festival, which was celebrated in ancient times in all religions and which prophetically pointed to the great spiritual sun hero, Christ Jesus.

[ 2 ] Today, through the spiritual-scientific worldview, we understand the Christian Christmas festival, which for two millennia has been felt as the festival of great idealism. When, on Christmas Eve, in the darkness of midnight, the church service begins and the lights are lit, they shine out into the darkness. This means that when everything on earth is once doomed to external death — just as everything purely human will succumb to death — then, as Christ made it true, the triumphant soul will live in the body, rising to a life of light from the physical shell, even when the earth as a material body will shatter into countless atoms. From this darkness, this downfall of the earth, the soul of the whole earth will rise with all human souls that will be absorbed into this earth soul. And so that not only the earth soul achieves this, but that all people on earth have the same certainty, Christ Jesus was the model, the ideal.

[ 3 ] And so it is not only the physical sun that is the image of the Christ being, but precisely the growing spiritual sun. When all forces have been transformed, when the Earth's body has been transfigured by love, then the Earth will be completely permeated by the Christ principle. The Christmas light is the symbol of this.

[ 4 ] The three kings are symbols, as are their gifts: gold symbolizes wisdom and royal power, myrrh symbolizes the defeat of death, and frankincense symbolizes the spiritualized etheric substances in which God, who has overcome death, is realized. Through these three symbols, Christ stands as king, as the conqueror of death, as the fulfillment of all earthly development. Everyone initiated into esotericism feels the birth of the Child of God, foreshadowed in the mysteries even before the time of Christ and still experienced afterwards. The mysteries were not ecclesiastical institutions and schools in the external sense, but places of education and worship where people learned wisdom, devotion, and faith, which is at the same time knowledge and recognition. There were great and small mysteries. Those who were admitted after undergoing various tests saw in the lesser mysteries dramatic representations of the eternal truths that the higher initiate experiences within himself. The greatest moments in human development can be compared, in a small way, to the experiences of a person born blind when he undergoes an operation: a whole new world opens up to him. The eyes of the spirit are opened to the initiate. A world of the spirit opens up to him in light and color, a completely new world, much greater than the physical world, with all its beings and inhabitants. All things seem animated to him. At this moment, the initiates experience the birth of their higher self. This was called the inner Christ festival. What these chosen ones were able to experience, and what the initiates can still experience today, was for the others, in the lesser mysteries, an ideal that they all hoped to achieve, some sooner, some later. Those who know that everyone has many lives to go through can be sure that their awakening, that initiation, will one day become a reality for them too; that the awakening of Christ within them will be achieved, the Christmas when the light will shine within them. Then that saying from the Gospel of John will be reversed: And the light will be understood in the darkness.

[ 5 ] This was thus represented in the mysteries. What took place as the great Christian event was a physical repetition of what happened in the mysteries for every initiate, in the small mysteries in the image, in the great mysteries within the human being. In the lesser mysteries, the important experience of the inner Christ was depicted at a very specific time of year, when the sun sends the least light to the world, on the longest night of winter — as is still the case today at Christmas. Let us picture the image that symbolized the meaning of inner human development in the lesser mysteries. In a sacred atmosphere of consecration, the people who were to see it gathered at Christmas, in the complete darkness of midnight. Then a peculiar, muffled, thunderous roar sounded, which gradually transformed into wonderful rhythmic tones, into harmonious sounds — the music of the spheres. And a faintly illuminated body, a sphere glowing dimly in the darkness, became visible, symbolizing the earth. From the faintly glowing disc of the Earth, rainbow-colored rings gradually emerged, flowing into one another and accompanying the sounds, spreading out in all directions—the divine iris. Thus, in ancient Atlantis, the Niflheim of Germanic mythology, the sun shone through the fog for the people. The apparition grew brighter and brighter, and the seven colors gradually changed to pale gold and pale violet. The formation shone ever brighter, and the light grew ever more powerful until it transformed into the brightest celestial body, the sun. In the center of this sun appeared — in the language of the people concerned — the name of Christ. For the person who had participated in this celebration, the significant words applied: he had seen the sun at midnight. That is, a symbol of spiritual vision had appeared to him. The person whose spiritual eye is open experiences that all matter becomes transparent, he sees through the earth, he actually sees the sun at midnight, he conquers matter. In reverse color, in violet-reddish color, the sun appears to them at midnight. What appears cosmically in the great world symbol is, for Christians, translated into human terms, the appearance of Christ Jesus on earth. We will all see the sun at midnight. This is also not in contradiction to the New Testament.

[ 6 ] Thus, Christ is the being who will transfigure what is now still connected with the lower, who will deify what is still connected with the worldly. He is the sun in the spiritual realm. The Christian esotericist or theosophical Christian perceives Christ Jesus in this way. At the time when the cold and darkness on earth are at their greatest, spiritual awakening takes place, because the initiates know that certain forces then pass through space and the constellation is most favorable for spiritual awakening. The disciples were taught that they should not be content with ordinary human knowledge, but should learn to survey the whole of humanity, the whole history of the earth. Look back to the time, the disciples were told, when the earth was still united with the sun and moon. Humanity at that time lived in sunlight. What the Earth was to become later was filled with spiritual power, which shone simultaneously in every being. Then came the moment when the sun detached itself from the Earth, when light shone down on the Earth from outside, when it became dark inside human beings. This moment marks the beginning of their development toward that distant future when they will once again carry sunlight within themselves. Then the higher human being, the sun human, who carries light within himself and possesses the power of enlightenment, develops within him.

[ 7 ] Thus, the Earth arose from the light, it passes through darkness, and will return to sunlight. Just as the power of the sun's rays diminishes in autumn and winter, so the spiritual recedes completely during the time when human beings are to learn to recognize the external things of the earth, matter. But the spiritual power grows again, and at Christmas time what Paul expresses in the parable of the grain of wheat comes to pass. If the sown grain does not perish in the earth, no new fruit can come forth. At Christmas time, the old life passes away, and new life arises in its womb. From this day on, the sap of the trees rises, new life springs forth, and the light begins to grow again in the darkness that had been increasing until then. The Christian translates this into the spiritual realm. Everything that pulls down in matter must pass away to make room for what springs up. Christ came into the world so that, as it were, what is to lead to the highest may be born out of lowliness. In the stable of the Gospel story, we see a transformation, a variation of what ancient wisdom called the cave. The festival was celebrated in hollowed-out rocks, differently according to the peoples. The next day, a second festival followed, showing how sprouting life emerges from the earth, from the rock. This, too, was a symbol of the growth of the spiritual out of the dying earthly.

[ 8 ] Everywhere in the inner sanctuaries of Egypt, in the Eleusinian mysteries and in the Orphic cult in Greece, in the Near East, among the Babylonians and Chaldeans, in the Mithras cult of the Persians and in the mysteries of the Indians, Christmas was celebrated in the same way: The participants in the lesser mysteries saw as a sensual spectacle what the initiates experienced. What was depicted was a prophetic reference to the birth of Christ in man. Such initiates who have already attained this are said to have reached the sixth stage. There were seven such levels: On the first level was the raven, which mediated communication between the spiritual and the outer world. Thus, the Bible speaks of the ravens of Elijah, and legend tells of the ravens of Wotan or the ravens of Emperor Barbarossa in Kyffhäuser.

[ 9 ] On the second level was the occultist. He was already admitted to the sanctuary and was inside it.

[ 10 ] The third degree was that of the fighter or warrior. Those who had attained it were allowed to stand up for spiritual truths to the outside world.

[ 11 ] Those who had reached the fourth degree were called lions. Their consciousness had expanded beyond their individuality to the consciousness of the entire tribe. Think, for example, of the lion of the tribe of Judah.

[ 12 ] The initiate of the fifth degree not only had tribal consciousness, but had also absorbed the consciousness of the national spirit into his own. He therefore received the name of his people; among the Persians, for example, he was called the “Persian.” Jesus calls Nathanael a “true Israelite”; Jesus recognizes him as an initiate of the fifth degree.

[ 13 ] The designation of one who had reached the sixth stage refers to an important characteristic. When we look around us in nature, we see the beings of nature evolving from the lowest beings to human beings, and from the average human being up to the one who allows Christ to be born within himself. In the lower beings, we see rhythm everywhere in life, a rhythm imposed on them by the sun. Plants always bloom at the same time of year, depending on their species, and open their flowers at the same time of day. Animals also show their annual rhythm in important life functions. Only humans are increasingly losing this regularity. They become free from the compulsion of the rhythm that was originally imposed on them. But when love for all beings awakens in them and floods through them, a new rhythm of their own is born from within them. This is now as regular as the rhythm of the sun, which never deviates in the slightest from its course — the consequences of which would be almost impossible to imagine. In the initiate of the sixth degree, one saw an image of the course of the beneficent sun in the universe, the image of Christ in man and in the spiritual world. That is why the sixth degree was called the Sun Hero.

[ 14 ] A shiver ran through the soul of the disciple who beheld such a Sun Hero. In him, Christ was born inwardly. This was an event that was perceived as a birth on the spiritual plane. The initiates of the first centuries placed the birth of the historical Jesus in the darkest time of the year, because with it the spiritual sun had risen. That is why the first Christians also introduced midnight mass, a cult around the dark midnight hour, when a sea of light shone on the altar. The highest degree was that of the Father.

[ 15 ] What had so often taken place in detail in the mysteries, far removed from all external events, unfolded openly in world history in Christ Jesus. Nothing higher can be experienced in the human soul than what was brought about externally in the physical world by the conqueror of death, the bringer of the pledge of eternal life for the soul. What grew out of the dying world as a new fruit of life was perceived by the initiates as the birth of the Christ Child in the spiritual world. Those who do not think of the spiritual as separate from the physical world feel a deep connection between the sun at Christmas and the spiritual life that develops from the life of the world. Christmas represents the birth of the greatest ideal that exists for the world, which will be realized when the earth reaches its goal. What is now prophetically proclaimed will one day become reality. Just as love that conquers death comes to life in the shining Christmas tree, so it will come to life in all human beings in the future. It now stands before us as a prospect.

[ 16 ] Thus, in the spirit of Christmas, we feel something that comes to us from far away, but which has always been celebrated since ancient times. With proper understanding, the festival will once again take on a much greater significance for us. The tree will also become more important to us as a symbol of the tree of paradise, which you all know from Genesis. Paradise is, after all, an image of the higher human nature, to which nothing evil is attached. Knowledge could only be gained at the cost of life. How this was viewed by those who knew is explained in a legend: When Seth wanted to return to paradise, the cherub with the fiery sword let him in. There he found that the tree of life and the tree of knowledge were intertwined. On the cherub's instructions, he was allowed to take three seeds from this united tree. The tree represents what man is to become and what only the initiate has already achieved. When Adam died, Seth took the three seeds and put them in Adam's mouth. From them sprouted a flaming bush, in which were written the words: “Ejeh Asher ejeh” - “I am who is, was, and will be.” The legend goes on to say that Moses made his miracle staff from it. Later, the gate of Solomon's temple was built from the same wood. Then a piece of it fell into the pool of Bethesda and gave it miraculous powers. And finally, it was used to make the cross of Christ. It is an image of dying life, passing away in death, which has the power to bring forth new life.

[ 17 ] A great symbol stands before us: life that has overcome death, the wood from the seed of paradise. The Rosicrucians present us with this dying and newly emerging life. It was not without reason that the great Goethe said:

And as long as you do not have that,
This: Die and become!
You are only a gloomy guest
On the dark earth.

[ 18 ] What a wonderful connection between the tree of paradise, the wood of the cross, and the life that springs from it! To feel the birth of the eternal human being in temporal life – that is what the idea of Christ, Christmas, should be for us. Human beings must already apply this to themselves: “The light shines in the darkness,” and gradually the darkness must comprehend the light. All souls in whom Christmas awakens the right spark will feel alive what Christmas brings forth in them, the ability that will develop into strength, enabling them to see, feel, and will in such a way that the saying is reversed and it is said: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has gradually understood the light.