This Sunday is Diwali and my Indian neighbours across the street will be hosting a party. Last year we got an invite, much to the delight of sugar-seeking-missile-children. The sub-continental community is growing rapidly in Canberra – with 12 000 Indian and 5 000 Nepali migrants moving here between our last two censuses, many of these people identify with Hinduism, Jainism or Sikhism. How should Christians approach a holiday like Diwali?
Before we answer that, let’s get clear on what we’re talking about. Diwali is a Hindu celebration and part of the 5-day festival of lights. Hindus follow a lunar calendar, like the ancient Hebrews, and so the date changes each year, much like Easter. Diwali derives from a Sanskrit word that means “row of lights.”
Diwali enacts a set of mythic stories – celebrating the day the god Rama returned to his kingdom in Ayodhya with his wife Sita after defeating the demon-king Ravana. It is also widely associated with Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, and Ganesha, the god of wisdom and the remover of obstacles. These stories come to symbolise spiritual victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance.
All this talk of gods might make you think this one is best avoided, but it’s worth noticing too that Diwali marks the beginning of the Hindu New Year, it’s a public holiday in India and plenty of Indians celebrate Diwali without much consideration of the spiritual aspects of the day – much the same as Christians in Victoria this week might’ve been glad to take Tuesday off while also saying, “Nup to the Cup” and ignoring the whole horsie thing.
I take my queues on this one from Paul in Athens in Acts 17. Paul was internally distressed by the Athenian idolatry. I can imagine him walking around, penning Romans 1 in his mind as he read the plaques on the city’s monuments. But he processed that distress into engaged persuasion. He looked for points of resonance between the gospel and the worship around him and showed how the longings of the Athenian heart are satisfied in the person of Jesus.
So how do we do that for Diwali? If you’re invited to a party this weekend, be winsomely curious. Ask heaps of questions about what this celebration means to them. If triumph of good over evil and light over darkness comes up, ask what that means about how we face darkness and evil now.
And should you get the chance, you can share your story of light overcoming darkness and good overcoming evil too. On the first Easter day John tells us that the women arrived at the tomb “while it was still dark” (John 20:1). The sun did rise the day before, but the time between Jesus’ death and that morning were perpetual gloom for Jesus’ followers. Discovering the open tomb, Mary Magdalene even assumes that some unnamed “they” had taken Jesus away. Darkness and evil looked for all money like the victors. Light had been extinguished.
But then the gardener calls her by name, and the glow of recognition flashes into Mary’s heart and the light that overcomes the darkness embraces her, and with her the whole world.
Jesus is God from God, Light from Light. He is the true and better Diwali and welcomes us out of ignorance, evil and darkness and into light and goodness and true knowledge and delight in God.
grace and Peace,
Steve