How often do you think of the weather? If you are like me you probably look at the forecast at least once every other day. I have a habit of looking at it in the morning in order to know how many layers of clothing to put on before I leave the house. Like it or not, weather has a lot to do with our way of life, and this has always been true. Even some of our holidays got their start because of the seasons. Christmas, for example, was a time for a ceremony of the winter solstice before Christians took it over and redirected it into a celebration of Jesus’ birth. Easter followed a similar pattern, being a time to celebrate the coming of Spring and fertility before Christians set aside this time to celebrate the resurrection. There is another holiday that is all about the weather too that occurs during the first week of February. We call it Groundhog Day. The significance of the timing here is that we are halfway through winter.
Groundhog Day grew out of a Celtic tradition called Imbolc meant to welcome in spring. Christians later made the day their own, calling it Candlemas and used the day as a feast marking the time Jesus went to the temple in Jerusalem. If the day was sunny the tradition was for there to be another 40 days of cold weather coming. Germans took this premise and attached the behavior of badgers to the sunny conditions, and when German immigrants made it to Pennsylvania they brought the tradition with them. This time the native animal used for the event was the groundhog.
Isn’t it interesting how different cultures have different ideas of what is normal?
What would someone in Asia, for instance, think about our Groundhog Day? As it turns out there are a lot of things that fall under the category of customs in the US that would seem strange to foreigners. Here is a short list of some of them:
Trick or treating
The concept of personal space
Putting ice in our drinks
Expecting free refills at restaurants
Advertising prescription drugs on television
Not having the sales tax for an item built into the price
Even within our own country there are differences in the way we are expected to act. Your location matters for this. You probably wouldn’t act the same way at a concert or sporting event vs. in church or in the hospital. And time makes a big difference here too. For example, what if you went Christmas caroling in the month of May? How do you think people would react? Or what if your children went trick or treating tonight? I doubt they would get much candy out of it.
We are expected to act differently depending on the situation. That is what society tells us. Faith is different. It tells us to act the same way all the time. It doesn’t matter where you are or what the date is.
The bible has many examples of this. There is a symbolism of sorts with many stories that equate Godly living with going a certain direction. People who followed God’s will often went in a westward direction. UnGodly people went east. That is the way Adam and Eve left the garden.
Remember Abram’s call to move himself and his house to another land?
Genesis 12:1-6
1The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2
“I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.
Harran is where modern day Turkey is now. Canaan is west of that.
Jacob went west to go home from Laban. The Israelites entered the promised land going west. The tabernacle gates were on the east end, so that when you entered the holy tabernacle you had to go west. And wise men seeking Jesus went west to see him.
This symbolism may be a consequence of the Earth rotating, going “East” as it does. The lesson here is that Godly living has us going against the grain. Where the Earth, or society, may have people going one way, our faith doesn’t bow to this. Many of Jesus’ parables had this theme too. They reverse expectations that are made because of cultural norms. The Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son parables, for example, teach us that the Kingdom of God is not defined at all by culture or societal laws.
Faith goes agains the grain. We should be glad it does.
God Bless