It's another new year for us to welcome in, and for many of us at St Andrew's, another Hogmanay to celebrate - for any Sassenachs, that's the Scottish name for New Year celebrations, and celebrations is definitely the word! I have to admit that when I was studying at New College in Edinburgh, I'd always arrange to be away for Hogmanay - the street party outside my door on the Royal Mile was just too loud and enthusiastic for me to cope with!
Evidently Hogmanay traditions, which are believed to originate with the Vikings, have survived in Scotland, and among Scottish Christians, as strongly as those of Christmas: or even more so, since for centuries Christmas was understood by strict Presbyterians as Catholic and therefore suspicious. So from a Christian perspective, what can we make of such customs? Take first-footing, for example: the custom of welcoming in as the first visitor of the new year a tall dark-haired man bearing coal, salt, whisky and black bun: what's going on here?
The first and obvious answer is that these gifts symbolise wishes for good fortune in the coming year: coal to keep the fire burning, salt as a sign of hospitality shared (once you've eaten someone's salt, you can't betray them), whisky, the Gaelic water of life, and black bun, full of the dried fruits and sugar that keep through winter until fruitful times return (if you don't eat it all at once). And a dark-haired man was sure not to be a pillaging Viking at your door!
But symbols never mean only one thing, and something supposed to bring good fortune can also bring the reverse. Burning coal is a major source of carbon dioxide, a contributor to global warming. High salt levels bring a risk of heart disease, as does overindulgence in calorific black bun. The dangers inherent in overconsumption of whisky are self-evident. And symbols which set one group of people apart from another can be used for ill as well as good - Scots know that from the dark time in their history when the kilt was made illegal!
Am I saying, then: ban Hogmanay? By no means - and not just because no one would take any notice! It would also be hypocritical of me, for Christianity uses symbols too. And it's interesting that though our branch of Christianity has historically tended to shy away from images and celebrations in the faith as potentially heathen and superstitious, the surrounding culture has more than made up for that lack. It looks as though people need not only words but also symbols, not only logic but also imagination, in order to live life fully.
How does that affect us at St Andrew's? We should be encouraged to explore the imaginative and symbolic aspects of faith as well as life, to find God through the images of our everyday world as well as through Scripture. But we also need to keep a critical eye on the symbolism with which society saturates us today through advertising and the media, seeking to persuade us that more is better, that possession is what makes us human. For our own symbols - water and bread and wine - speak to us not only of God's good gifts: thirst quenched, hunger satisfied, celebration enjoyed; but also of God's good acts: cleansing and forgiveness, wholeness through divine self-sacrifice. In them we find not an attempt to attract good luck to ourselves, but the divine choosing to come into the ordinary, God meeting us where we are and transforming it and us. And that to me seems the best luck of all.