When the journey is the destination

Flights to nowhere and third spaces.

Jamie Mulvaney

Jamie is Associate Minister at Holy Trinity Clapham, London.

A large airport window silhouettes a bench at which one person sits.

Suganth on Unsplash.

'It's not about the destination. It's the journey.' Spare a thought for the British Airways passengers who left Heathrow to Houston, only to land back where they started at nine hours later. It's probably a little bit about the destination too.

Even though BA195 was already flying over Newfoundland when the technical issue was raised, it made more sense to fix one of its Rolls Royce engines back at the ranch. In November an Air New Zealand flight also had a 'flight to nowhere' that lasted eleven hours. I'm not sure that's quite what T.S. Eliot meant when he wrote:

'We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.’

Being stuck somewhere you don't want to be, let alone finding yourself back where you began, is a tad more prosaic. The never-ending journey can feel like a destination in itself. Which is exactly where you don't want to be.

Airports and airplanes are neutral territory, not dissimilar to 'third places' as coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg. Home is the first place, workplace is the second, and then there's the third space in our lives. Some of the characteristics are shared: a neutral ground without obligations, a leveller where status doesn't matter, and also where conversation is the main activity. Clearly Oldenburg wasn't thinking of the tube and Londoners where the chat is minimal! Airports and airplanes are also not completely levelling, when a delay or diversion means some can wait well up in the pointy end of the plane or in exclusive lounges.

Everybody knows each other's name, they celebrate together, mourn together - a compelling mixture of conviction, compassion and community.

The other day I turned on the TV, a re-run of Cheers appeared, about the eponymous bar in Boston where characters from different backgrounds and perspectives mingle. My toddler asked 'What's that?' I thought better than beginning to explain the concept of a third place. Or drinking. But we're all trying to get somewhere in life. Whether that's to get ahead, or even if it's just away from it all: to a bar or a holiday. So, the frustration of being stationary and sedentary in life when you're supposed to be having upward momentum can be even more challenging than the inconvenience of being up in the air and flying backwards.

But the Christian message is that the destination and the journey are actually inseparable.

Firstly, the church, if small enough, like Cheers, is a place 'where everybody knows your name'. I was recently at a church on a council estate and next to a prison. Everybody knows each other's name, they celebrate together, mourn together - a compelling mixture of conviction, compassion and community. In larger churches, much like most 'third places' you won't know everybody's name, but there is the commonality of having the same destination in mind. The sceptic might say it's simply a ticket to heaven, but the picture the Bible paints of the eternal reality is distinctly mirrored in the week-by-week journey: a liminal place where every people from every tribe and nation gather. It's a place where we can be propelled into the future.

Then there's the cross itself. The gospel writer Luke says that 'Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem'. He had his destination in mind. And on the cross there was finality for Jesus. But there was also an onward journey to come. Could it be that what the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus opens up for us is not just an eternal destiny in the future, but a journey today where keeping company with God is the destination too?

Perhaps that's what entering a church can mean for us today: to cross the threshold into the future, and to know the place for the first time.

Explainer

Christmas culture

Creed

19 December 2023

4 min read

Why Christmas Day is Christmas Day

The seasons, festivals, historians and emperors have all influenced the date of Christmas.

Ryan Gilfeather

Ryan Gilfeather explores social issues through the lens of philosophy, theology, and history. He is a Research Associate at the Joseph Centre for Dignified Work.

a had holds out a small wrapped Christmas present.

I came of age in the 2000s, a decade quite alien to us now. We saw ourselves as pioneers of technology, as the internet emerged in its prehistoric form. There was great optimism about the economy until it all went wrong in 2008. The New Atheism movement was roaring into public view, only to wane just as quickly the decade after. Growing up as a Christian, I remember spirited debates with my peers about whether science disproved Christianity and if God can be disproven. These questions have fallen out of view, just as many of its main proponents have too. Richard Dawkins rarely darkens the door of our TV screens anymore.

However, one such moment of conflict sticks out in my mind. A friend announced to me that he had disproved the origins of Christianity. The night before he had discovered that in the third century Roman Empire, before Christianity became legal and the official religion, there was already a festival celebrating a god on the 25th of December. Instead of the birth of the Son of God, the Romans celebrated the rebirth of the Unconquered Sun — Sol Invictus. Then, in 336 under the first Christian Emperor, Constantine, that date was first celebrated as the day of the birth of Christ. My friend considered the case to be closed; surely the birth of Christ was merely a repurposing of an existing festival?

Thankfully this shocking revelation did not pick away at the foundations of my faith. I continued, and still continue, to believe in and love the Christian God, as revealed in the Bible. Indeed, since that moment I have trained as a scholar in the history of the early Church, and have begun to see this question for what it is, a quirk of history.

We, therefore, celebrate Christ’s birth on the 25th December on account of a quirk of history, a result of the way that Romans mapped significant events on to the waxing and waning of the light.

The first claim that Christ was born on the 25th December appears in the third century. Sextus Julius Africanus, a Roman Christian historian, wrote an entire chronology of the world from creation to AD 221. He considered March 25th to be the date of creation, because it was the spring equinox in the Roman Calendar, a day which represents new life and new birth. For this reason, he likewise considered it to be the date of Christ’s conception in the womb. Crucially, nine months after that falls December 25th. Although I admire his logic, it is hardly a sound basis for establishing the date of our Lord’s birth. Indeed, other Christians didn’t accept this claim at the time either.

As already mentioned, December 25th was a significant date in the Roman calendar already. It was the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, after which the days begin to lengthen. It also shortly followed the popular Roman festival of the Saturnalia. Already endowed with significance, it is unsurprising that the Romans began to celebrate the rebirth of Sol Invictus, and the birth of another god, Mithras, on that date.

At this time Christianity was an illegal religion, persecuted in some parts of the Roman Empire. However, in 312, the emperor Constantine converts to Christianity and in 313 makes it a legally tolerated religion. At this point he begins to invest the church and Christians with powers, wealth and privileges. Evidence from the Chronography of AD 354 suggests that Christmas was first celebrated on the 25th December in 336, during the reign of Constantine. Perhaps this was an attempt to dislodge existing pagan holidays, and replace it with a Christian one. Or, maybe the significance of the Winter solstice made that date most plausible. Indeed, it is easy to see how the commemoration of Christ coming into the world is particularly salient as the darkness begins to recede. The true answer is, of course, lost to history.

We, therefore, celebrate Christ’s birth on the 25th December on account of a quirk of history, a result of the way that Romans mapped significant events on to the waxing and waning of the light. The true lesson here though, is that it simply doesn’t matter what the actual date of Christ’s birth was. Our records, and those available in the early church were simply not good enough for us to ever know. What matters is that God loves us so much, that he became human to bring us back to his side in everlasting joy and peace. We have no idea on what date Christ was born. But, each year the 25th December presents a time for us to remember that God became man, so that we might have everlasting life.