Seasonal Symbolism

[Gandalf_theGrey]

Hail and Well Met, Westerly Wizard!

* bows an introductory greeting, offers you a bit of Longbottom Leaf * A pleasure to meet you. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Indeed, thank you for questioning me. For having done a brief bit of research in response to your question, I wish to slightly amend my earlier comment.

According to a website called "From Bethlehem to Calvary," I should not have marked March 25th as Good Friday, but rather as Easter. (Though actually, while I am now proposing a connection between March 25th and Easter, I would still like to stand by Good Friday, due to all that Good Friday represents.)

"The Jesus-story, it will now be seen, has a greater number of correspondences with the stories of former Sungods and with the actual career of the Sun through the heavens - so many indeed that they cannot well be attributed to mere coincidence or even to the blasphemous wiles of the Devil! Let us enumerate some of these. There are (1) birth from a Virgin mother; (2) the birth in a stable (cave or underground chamber); and (3) on the 25th December (just after the winter solstice). There is (4) the Star in the East (Sirius) and (5) the arrival of the Magi (the 'Three King's); there is (6) the threatened Massacre of the Innocents, and the consequent flight into a distant country (told also of Krishna and other Sungods). There are the Church festivals of (7) Candlemas (2nd February), with processions of candles to symbolize the growing light; of (8) Lent, or the arrival of Spring; of (9) Easter Day (normally on 25th March) to celebrate the crossing of the Equator by the Sun; and (10) simultaneously the outburst of lights at the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.

The above quote comes from the website at the following URL:
http://www.netnews.org/bk/bethlehem/beth1019.html

And of course you speak soothly when you say that the date on which Good Friday is commemorated varies from year to year.

* bows *

Gandalf the Grey

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: Gandalf_theGrey ]