[We depart from our usual inner healing thoughts to offer a Christmas rant. Or maybe we are giving in to the ornery feels we sometimes get at this time of year. In any case, feel free to skip past the rant to the positive suggestions at the end.]
What comes to mind when you think of Christmas? Is it the colors red, green, and white? A bearded man with a big belt-buckle and a dozen reindeer? Pretty lights, candles, bells, and baubles? Evergreen tree, holly, and mistletoe? Edible candies, cookies, and figgy pudding, with drinkable eggnog or mulled wine? Maybe brightly colored presents near a crackling fire on a snowy winter evening? Or vacation with family in plaid pajamas watching movies and playing the Grinch game?
Where’s Christ in the Christmas traditions, and can secular foreigners tell the difference? We know Santa’s apparel is merely an outdated and conveniently sensational aesthetic, but I once had a Japanese Buddhist tell me quite seriously that he thought the Santa hat was religious! That the Santa figure has inspirational roots in the saint Nicholas of Myra the secret gift-giver is indisputable, but the myth draws on the tiniest sliver of the textured life of the historical man in a craven world. Saving young women from prostitution through the provision of dowry is not exactly a digestible concept for young children—but it is far less sentimental and far more vital, giving insight into the early church pouring into the broken society surrounding it, a picture that still has modern counterparts all over the world. Instead, the image of the saint has been twisted into a carrot-and-stick dynamic that spontaneously reinvents new evil counterparts for Santa— Krampus devil, Black Pete, Elf on the Shelf—when Santa’s naughty list and lump of coal doesn’t seem extreme enough for scaring children into good behavior and inculcating in them a punitive and rule-bound world-view that is ripe for conforming to abuse.
I think it’s time to face the fact that the concept of Christmas has been divorced from the idea of the birth of Jesus for many years now—in the public mind at least, if not in yours. Despite the ‘Christ’ hidden at the center of the word “Christmas,” that is, “Christ-mass,” he’s not overtly included in most media definitions of the holiday or its celebrations and its value to English-speaking culture. He’s clearly in the bottom ten percent of December ads, parties, traditions, and contemporary songs. New wintry pop songs are written every year, but few Christian carols with staying power (not remixes!).
As for “recent” media and literature, with the warm and genuine exceptions of angelic appearance and testimony to George Bailey’s worth in It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), the Narnian Father Christmas of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950) whose ability to meet the Pevensie children at their level of joy and understanding and equip them with tools for battle and adulthood reflects a fragment of the nature of God that subverts certain tropes about Santa Claus, and Linus’ long scripture-quoting speech in Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), there has been precious little new popular media that attempts to grapple with these subjects in any sincerely Christian way that isn’t a pageantry retelling of the Biblical Christmas Story itself. Hmm. Scratch Charlie Brown Christmas off the list there. Of course, Nativity scenes do cameo in film occasionally, most memorably in Home Alone (1990)—but again, this happens far less frequently than the inclusion of secular displays, and only when it is narratively thematic or funny. That’s because the Christ story is not and never was culturally neutral. It comes fully loaded with quiet rebuke, and the world knows that. It’s also very difficult to pull off without preaching.
Sorry, Linus; I give you a pass because we know it’s in your character.
The way stories and movies portray the “spirit of Christmas” and the “joy of Christmas” has never landed very well. I always listen carefully to the definitions given by popular films and I am invariably perplexed. There is an obsession with converting cynics to cheerleaders. What they seem to portray as the desired outcome of December 25th in particular is just downright strange: more specific, selfish, and illusory than the common fruit of the spirit of joy and the good news of salvation or the spirit of sacrificial generosity, and fathering. “Belief in Christmas” (not Christ) is something so fragile that lies are required to protect it from being lost and saved. Whatever counterfeit this Christmas offers—false cheer, false charity, false joy, false hope, false humility, false kindness, good behavior, whimsy, pressure, mania, desperation, sales, perfection, greed, you name it—from the first to the last, I don’t want it. It’s creepy and paltry. But I can’t help but be fascinated with horror because people seem so enthralled by this unachievable yet tawdry thing, magic.
MAGIC. FANTASY.
Do you not know who you are, child of God? Is our God not greater than magic? Does he not satisfy the longings of our hearts, and not merely the appearance of perfection of the flesh? Does he not supply realer than real substance, not fool’s gold and faery cake that melts in the sunlight? Which thing do we really want to receive?
And what do we want to do during this season? Do we want to perform, or do we want to serve? What Martha did to prepare for Jesus as her guest was necessary, but Mary chose the greater thing, and Jesus never told Martha to be the perfect housewife. As host, she too had an opportunity to dance from service through hospitality to intimacy—or to guilt, blame, and jealousy. Her sacrifice enabled her sister to invest in her relationship with Jesus for a few more precious minutes. I wonder if she looked back on that moment later in her life and went, wow. God really made the most of that time, and I had no idea what I did for her. Jesus made it clear that relationship was for Martha, too, when she was ready to take off her hostess hat.
The war for our attention has already been won, and it wasn’t the “culture war” that put Jesus in the “irrelevant to Christmas” category. The lack of creativity from Christians, by Christians, to Christians, about Christ and the true nature of the Father has resulted in complete inability to compete with the deluge of new content produced by the other side that doesn’t honor or point back to Christ Jesus of Nazareth in any way, shape, or form. Fancy being crowded out of your own holiday by Santa and the ‘ol razzle-dazzle! I don’t care if his ilk or imagery is Christian or pagan or an unholy mixture of neither and both. It’s a most incredibly effective distraction!
What has been more effective than anything else at stripping Jesus from the holiday is simply the saturation of crass song and imagery and the erosion of quiet time across the entire holiday season. Putting more angry words into the ether doesn’t help. The only thing that will save Christmas from the full and complete perversion of itself is true peace. Instead of adding to the competition, a fight that we lose by participating in it, I suggest we silently find ourselves a new space for contemplation. Call it a strategic retreat.
I am so fricking distracted by human activity and drama around Christmas that even if I try to give Jesus the focus that he deserves, I feel guilty and weird about it. Truth be told, he doesn’t need that kind of torn, stricken worship. The intensity of this time is too much for the quiet I need to give full honor to Jesus with my whole heart; I freely admit that. It’s too much.
Here’s what I am going to do: relax. Stop trying. Do what I do well. Let the day December 25th be as secular as it wants to be. Cut out what is harmful and let the rest go. We don’t actually have a duty to defend this holiday, and we, the remnant, have more important fish to fry. What’s liberating is the truth that Jesus’ birth can be celebrated any time of year, free of extraneous baggage and distracting competing traditions. We don’t actually know the precise day or the hour of Jesus’ birth; we have symbolic gestures and a few theories, some with more evidence than others, but no perfect proof. We can come up with our own reasoning, and make it personal.
For my own family, when we have asked how we can best represent Jesus in this season, he has replied that since the purpose of Christmas these days is to show love to one another, we should decorate to the degree that decorations support that effort—to display just enough to make one another feel warm, welcome, and comfortable, and not to stand out with a lack of decoration.
Now ask the Lord for your own instructions. Or make him a proposal and ask for his approval. Your choice!
We are welcome to celebrate him anytime, whether in June, or September, or May, or October. You may celebrate him on Sukkot (for he tabernacled with us). You may celebrate him on Hannukah (for he is the light of the world). Or do you want to celebrate him 5-6 days before or after Rosh Hashanah, in accordance with the medieval reasoning for the December 25th date? Go for it! You are welcome to celebrate his conception, or his trimesters, or his birth. You are welcome to consider his stays in Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Egypt on a five- or three-year cycle. (How I long to know what challenging experiences Mary and Joseph went through while on Mission Savior’s Toddlerhood: Escape from Herod – Emergency Staycation in Egypt!) You can speculate when and where the journey of the magi began and ended and celebrate their progress over the course of the year. You may imagine when the angel appeared to Mary. You have the opportunity to consider Jesus’ birth at every census, at every quest for reunion and rediscovering homeland, at every farm, at every hotel and inn, or with every new baby. You may even confront or redeem a relevant holiday of your own problematic pagan heritage. You are free to play it safe and free to take risks.
Do it when you want to. Do it when your heart feels quiet, not stressed. Don’t let any tradition—even or especially church tradition—bully you. When do you feel drawn to contemplate this part of his life on Earth?
Resources
For more on the value of establishing one’s own personal rhythms of worship, see “Tools for Cleansing Time and Land,” Arthur Burk, 2011