Redeeming Newroz
Seven ways a festival with Zoroastrian roots can glorify Christ

The festival of Newroz is the oldest and one of the most beloved celebrations of the Kurdish people. Can Christians celebrate this holiday even though it has connections to ancient Zoroastrianism?

Some religious groups reject Newroz and clamp down on its celebration. Both the Shiite regime in Iran and the Sunni powers in Afghanistan have tried to stop their people from celebrating it. I believe the way of Christ is not to hide its Zoroastrian roots —we can be quite open and honest about this —but to redeem many elements of the festival and to celebrate it in a way that strengthens family life, benefits our mental and physical health, and causes people to think about Jesus as the Liberator of all Humanity.

However, let’s begin by remembering that the Bible does warn us against being led astray by myths. What is a myth? A myth is a traditional story that conveys cultural or moral truths but is ultimately fictional or symbolic rather than historical and factual.

In fact, four times Paul warns against trusting in made-up stories, which have no power to save us. Peter also has one verse about this, which is worth quoting and memorizing:

“For we did not follow cleverly contrived myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; instead, we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” (2 Peter 1:16 CSB)

First, by not treating the Newroz legend as a historical fact, but as what it is – a myth.

Beware Syncretism

Chaharshanbeh Suri (Scarlet Wednesday) is the official beginning of the Newroz celebration. This year it falls three days before Newroz (Wed, March 19th). On the evening of this last Tuesday of the Persian year, the ancient Iranians danced around a fire and jumped over the flames. This holidy is still celebrated today, often using fireworks in addition to bonfires. Iranians jump over the flames singing a special folk song.

sorkhi-ye to az man, 
zardi-ye man az to

This could be poetically translated as:

Give me your beautiful red color 
And take back my sickly pallor! 

There is some idolatry here -the vestiges of ancient fire worship- from which we should flee. As those celebrating jump over the flames, they sing, wishing that all illness and sadness would burn in the fire.

However, Christians know that “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29, quoting Deut 4:24); we certainly shouldn’t worship fire nor trust in it for our purification or healing. Yet it is a striking parallel that this famous prayer hopes for a transfer of sickness from us to the ‘holy’ fire, when in truth it was Jesus who through his death on the cross “took up our infirmities and bore our diseases” (Matt 8:17).

Some object to Zoroastrians being called fire-worshippers, but I think there is in their religion at least an element of that —why else would they be praying to the fire? As Christians, we should “flee from idolatry” (1 Cor 10:14). So, I suggest that we should refrain from this prayer/song and perhaps from jumping over the fire – at least if it is seen as a ritual that might bring healing. If jumping over the fire is just understood as a bit of fun and getting a stretch of the legs, then I’ll leave you to do your own risk assessment!

Now that we’ve determined not to “devote ourselves to myths” and have rejected idolatry, we’re in a position to ‘take captive’ the thoughts of Newroz to make them obedient to Christ. Here are seven ways that Newroz can glorify Christ.

1) A Celebration of Spring

Newroz is very much a spring festival. It occurs at the beginning of Spring, on the Spring Equinox, one of only two points in the year at which day and night are of equal length.

As I’ve matured, I’ve come to enjoy Spring more each year for its color and the smell of its blossoms. In fact, excitement at the coming of Spring is also very biblical.

“See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
the sesaon of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
is heard in our land.”

-Song of Songs 2:11-12

Furthermore, creation is not just a fact that proves God exists or that he’s mighty. Creation has a purpose:

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment (1 Tim 6:17).

Our response to God’s creation should not just be to believe that God created this world, but to get out and enjoy it because he has provided it for our enjoyment.

When we lived in Kurdistan, our family learned the importance of getting out on bikes and paddle boards to delight in the mountains and cool lakes. Similarly, Newroz and its celebration of Spring can help us to enjoy God’s good gift of nature.

There is some truth in the critique that evangelicals have a strong doctrine of redemption, but a weak doctrine of creation. When celebrated by Christians, Newroz can help guard against this weakness. We’ve talked about the danger of syncretism, but a second error to avoid is called extractionism. Believers who’ve come to Christ from non-Christian families often become Americanised or Europeanised and they throw away much that is good from their native culture, not just the wrong religious ideas.

Rather than withdrawing from their families’ Newroz celebrations, Kurdish believers can instead use these gatherings to delight in yet another Spring that God has so generously given.

2) The Word ‘Newroz’ Means ‘A New Day’

Psalm 98 says we should “sing a new song.” If this was true for God’s people under the Old Covenant, how much more now for Christians who know that in Christ, a new day of redemption has dawned?

“Now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2).

In Nashville, Tennessee, there was an attempt to establish a Kurdish church called Newroz Church. What a great name for a Kurdish church! The very name of the Newroz festival is an opportunity to remember and proclaim Christ, the one who is renewing all things, starting even now and culminating one day in a new heavens and new earth.

“I am making everything new” (Revelation 21:5).

3) The Symbol of The Sun: Jesus Is The Sun of Righteousness

The sun in the Kurdish flag has 21 rays, a feature intended by its designer to point to March 21st, the festival of Newroz. The sun has long been a symbol of the Kurdish people and of Newroz itself. This centrality of the sun gives Christians yet another way to point to Christ.

Consider Malachi 4:2 which says of the Day of the Lord’s salvation that, “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings.” Christ is the fulfillment of this promise. He is himself the true sun of righteousness. Accordingly, both Matthew 17 and Revelation 1 speak of the face of Jesus shining “like the sun.”

I have written elsewhere about the value of reading the opening to Ecclesiastes and acknowledging the frustration we feel that there is “nothing new under the sun”. But Christ is the true sun of righteousness, the one who has come from above our sun into the world ‘under the sun’, to save us from the pain and futility of this world and to bring us into his eternal light.

4) Zahhak and The Serpents:  An Acknowledgement of The Reality of Satan

Newroz not only reminds us of righteousness. It also points to evil. Firdouwsi, the gifted poet and author of the epic poem, Shahnameh, describes Zahhak as an evil king who has serpents growing from his shoulders.

“So the beloved of Ahriman, Zohak the Serpent, sat upon the throne of Iran, the kingdom of Light. And he continued to pile evil upon evil till the measure thereof was full to overflowing, and all the land cried out against him. But Zohak and his councillors, the Deevs, shut ear unto this cry, and the [king] reigned thus for the space of a thousand years, and vice stalked in daylight, but virtue was hidden. And despair filled all hearts, for it was as though mankind must perish to still the appetite of those snakes sprung from Evil, for daily were two men slaughtered to satisfy their desire. Neither had Zohak mercy upon any man. And darkness was spread over the land because of his wickedness.”

The mythology Newroz acknowledges that evil and violent oppression are real. It even connects this evil and violence to a wicked serpent ruler. Here, there are strong echoes of the biblical imagery of Satan, the ancient serpent who opposes God and his people from Genesis to Revelation.

Because of this, I like to use this phrase from Ecclesiastes to summarise how we should mark Newroz: ‘A time to mourn, and a time to dance.’ Yes, we dance in celebration of God’s creation and light. But we also mourn because this world is also fallen and full of evil and oppression. We mourn because one even worse than Zahak still “prowls around… seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

Reading this excerpt from Firdowsi can be quite fitting during Newroz, when Kurds are acutely aware of tyranny, corruption, oppression, and death. As Christians, we know the true source of the world’s brokenness. We know about humanity’s fall into sin and about the evil one who deceived and continues to deceive and oppress us. Satan is real, as is so much human evil done in his likeness. Newroz is therefore an opportunity to grieve the reality of evil with our Kurdish friends, even as we point them to the one who will bring justice.

5) Kawa The Blacksmith: Jesus The Carpenter

Kawa, or Kaveh in Persian, is the humble hero of the Newroz legend. He defies Zahhak and overcomes him with his blacksmith hammer. He uses his leather blacksmith apron as a standard, with a spear as its hoist. This is called the Derafsh Kaviani, the standard of Kaveh.

In the Newroz mythology, the liberation of the oppressed is won through the leadership of one man, and a lowly man at that, a manual worker. Note how Kawa in many ways reminds us of Jesus, the carpenter, a person of lowly birth from a backwater of Israel called Nazareth in Galilee. In this way, Kawa becomes another bridge linking Newroz to the ‘true myth’ of the gospel.

I once heard a Kurd say “Kawa has become Zahhak.” This is one example of the widespread disillusionment that Kurds have with their leaders. Many feel that those who claim to stand for the liberation of their people from foreign rule have themselves proved to be unjust rulers.

Jesus, by contrast, is a ruler of tremendous integrity. He is the humble hero. Yet he is also the just king who wields power as a good shepherd, as the ultimate servant leader. The Kurdish longing for a leader truly worthy of their allegiance can only be satisfied in Christ himself.

As Psalm 46 says, “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man in whom there is no salvation… The Lord sets the prisoners free… The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down… The Lord will reign forever” (Psalm 46:3-10).

6) Redemption Through Substitution

The Kurdish emir Sharaf Khan Bidlisi, 1597, author of the Sharafname, narrated the Newroz legend in this way:

After the death of the great Persian king Jamshid, the tyrant Zahhak usurped the throne and established a reign of terror. Besides being cruel by natural inclination, he suffered from a strange disease that made him even more of an oppressor. Two snakes grew out of his shoulders and caused him severe pain, which could only be alleviated by feeding the snakes human brains each day. So every day Zahhak had two young persons killed and their brains fed to the snakes. 

The man charged with slaughtering the two young people taken to the palace each day took pity on them and thought up a ruse. He killed only one person a day, replacing the other by a sheep and mixing the two brains. One young person’s life was thus saved every day; he was told to leave the country and to stay hidden in distant inaccessible mountains. 

The young persons thus saved gradually came to constitute a large community; they married among themselves and brought forth offspring. These people were named Kurds. Because during many years they evaded other human company and stayed away from the towns, they developed a language of their own. In the forests and the mountains they built houses and tilled the soil. Some of them came to own property and flocks, and spread themselves over the steppes [grasslands] and deserts.

The idea of redemption through substitution is clearly present in this Kurdish version of the Newroz story. Every day, one child was saved from death because his place was taken by a sheep. These children did not save themselves; rather, they were saved by another, specifically, by a substitutionary sacrifice.

I find it intriguing to ponder whether Firdowsi had Christian friends who might have spoken to him about Christ the Passover Lamb. As John the Baptist proclaims, Jesus is “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), the one to whom all the animal sacrifices of the prophets point. Christians can read this legend with a profound sense of gratitude that the Lamb of God has come to be slain so that we can be redeemed.

7) A People Set Apart

Notice how in the Kurdish version of the Newroz legend, “The young persons thus saved gradually came to constitute a large community; they married among themselves and brought forth offspring. These people were named Kurds.”

In this story, to be a Kurd means to be one of the redeemed ones, a people set apart with a distinctive language and culture. This can point to how followers of Christ are called to live set apart, holy lives, fighting sin, only marrying other believers, and building a culture of love and compassion.

Of course, as with so many legends, the Newroz myths tend to be ethnocentric to the exclusion of a truly global vision. In contrast with this, Christ’s redemption is breathtakingly broad in scope:

[9] And they sang a new song, saying,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
[10] and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.” (Revelation 5:9-10 ESV)

Newroz can point to the set-apart people of Christ, those who have been ransomed from “every tribe and language and people and nation.”

Conclusion

Newroz, a festival with ancient Zoroastrian roots can indeed glorify Christ. Yes, in this we are making use of non-Christian mythology to point to Jesus. But this practice of possessio has an interesting biblical precedent – the phenomenon of Egyptian gold and Israelite worship. At least some of the gold given to the Hebrews as they departed Egypt must have ended up in the sanctuary of God’s presence, glorifying the God of Israel. In the same way, the echoes of truth found in the Newroz legends can be made to point to and serve the gospel, the ‘true myth’ by which all men must be saved.

If believers are helped to meditate on these seven ways that Newroz glorifies Christ, then perhaps singing and dancing (proud Newroz traditions) would be the most appropriate Kurdish and Christian response. How wonderful it would be if a new Newroz tradition grew of singing Psalms like Psalm 149 in Kurdish, with Kurdish-style melodies, everyone holding hands and dancing in the Spring meadows of Kurdistan.

Praise the Lord.
Sing to the LORD a new song,
his praise in the assembly of his faithful people.
Let Israel rejoice in their Maker;
let the people of Zion be glad in their King.
Let them praise his name with dancing
and make music to him with tambourine and harp.
For the LORD takes delight in his people;
he crowns the humble with victory.
Praise the LORD.

-Psalm 149:1-4