One of my favorite lines from A Charlie Brown Christmas is when Linus tells Charlie Brown that he is the only person he knows, “who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem.” Unfortunately I don’t think that it is only Charlie Brown who has turned Christmas into a problem, much of the rest of society has also done a pretty good job of it. For example in 2017 the average person in the United States was $1,054 in debt from Christmas expenses. And as of a few days ago 15% of Americans were still paying off the debt that had acquired from that Christmas of 2017. Now if debt is not your of a good problem then let’s turn to the annual “Christmas offends me” sweepstakes, where someone or group get a case of the vapors over a public Christmas Tree or Crèche lawn decoration. Interestingly, this year the sweepstakes seem to have been won by a Canadian named Ben Isitt who is a Councilor in Victoria, British Columbia. He took such deep offense at a poinsettia, which appeared on his desk, that he demanded all lights that received public funding be taken down in the city. And while it certainly saddens me that we Americans have now lost our competitive advantage in our ability to be offended there are also more existential and real issues that come with Christmas, like those who are lonely or sad because Christmas reminds them of what they are without. And I don’t want to make light of this but simply point out that many of us seem to have of our own volition or because of circumstances taken a wonderful season like Christmas and turned it into a problem. But here is the good news; if you follow the traditional Christian Calendar there is still time to be like Ernest and save Christmas, because the season really does not even start until tomorrow. So on this night as we move into the season of Christmas let’s think for a minute about how it can look when removed from what has become known as the Christmas Season.
One of the things that some people are surprised to learn when they begin to read the Bible, outside of how much it quotes the Book of Common Prayer, is that only two of the Gospels contain the Christmas story – Matthew and Luke with Luke being the most complete. Mark’s Gospel jumps right into John the Baptist and John’s Gospel while having some figurative language about the word becoming flesh, offers no mangers or shepherds or trips to Bethlehem. And the question for many who have been raised in an era where Christmas is the preeminent Christian holiday is why would the Gospels not have given more ink to the birth narrative. Obviously they are not around for me to ask but I can speculate that to the Gospel writers, being born was not seen as a monumental achievement or essential to the faith. In other words, Christianity did not come into existence because Jesus was born but because of what happened later (if you don’t know what that is come back at Easter and I will explain). A similar epistemological phenomenon happens with the commemoration of saint’s days. Traditionally saints are not celebrated on the day of their birth but rather on the day of their death because that is the day that they were born into eternal life. Birthdays were not big with early Christians partly because of this and partly because it had pagan trappings to it (i.e. the Romans liked birthday parties).
Now I assume by this point I am coming off as being somewhat dismissive of Christmas but that is not my intent. Rather what I want to point out is that by Christmas having become the only Christian holiday about which anyone pays attention, it now has to do things that it was never meant to do. The pressure that we have created for not only this day but for ourselves as well can also be too much to bear. We have to find the perfect presents, send out beautiful Christmas card pictures where we look fantastic but not too staged. We must bake cookies, decorate our yards, our trees our houses, attend numerous parties and remember who can be greeted with Merry Christmas and who gets a generic happy holidays. The other day the Wall Street Journal ran a humorous and sort of tragic article about the tyranny that the Elf on the Shelf has unleashed in this age of instagram and pinterist. I don’t want to go too deep into it but suffice it to say if your elf is not involved in a snowball fight with Barbie and Ken when your child wakes up then you just are not doing your job as a parent.
So here is my proposal and one that we can even keep secret from the people that believe the Christmas season ends at the stroke of midnight tomorrow night; Let’s spend the twelve days of Christmas in contemplation of a simpler and smaller Christian holiday. By simpler and smaller I do not mean that it is somehow diminished, I simply mean that we celebrate Christmas for what it is, not as the summation of all Christian holidays.
Today the angels appear to the shepherds and say, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord." It all sounds pretty grandiose until we remember that shepherds were very low on the social strata and that Bethlehem, the city of Christ’s birth, was a mediocre town in the backwater of the Roman Empire. Something like if Jesus were born in Peoria. C.S. Lewis writing in an introduction to J.B. Phillips translation of the New Testament said, “The Incarnation itself ought to shock us. Divine humility decreed that God should become a baby at a peasant-woman’s breast, and later an arrested field-preacher in the hands of the Roman police….The Incarnation is in that sense, an irreverent doctrine: Christianity, in that sense, an incurably irreverent religion.” Modern Christmas has either crowded out Jesus or added so many flourishes that we can miss the humble quietness of the whole thing. But all of that will end tomorrow night and we can have our own Christmas. A Christmas that will focus on the divine humility about which Lewis speaks. A Christmas that does not look to the showy or boisterous, but to a peasant woman and the son to whom she gave birth. We can make it a time to look to those in society and in our own lives who are often pushed to the margins, even by the Church. The people who may not fit in to a well choreographed and staged Christmas. Take some time to love all even those who are not celebrated or exalted.
The incarnation itself is, if you remove the angels, a rather small affair. Some very minor people in the low rent district of the Roman Empire have had to take time out of their schedule to comply with a government tax-raising scheme. And it is while doing their best not to raise the ire of the Roman Empire that Mary gives birth to the Son of God. God entered the world in very ordinary circumstances, by entering into the lives of ordinary people being inconvenienced by the government. It is kind of like if God came to us while in line at the DMV. But this is the place where God showed up and is how it should be truly celebrated. We should show others the revelation of God in those ordinary and mundane places where most of life is lived.
Everyone living in this country knows that Christians are celebrating the birth of Jesus, what they may not know or see is the love of God expressed in this action. So in these twelve days of Christmas that are now commencing let us show people the love of God, not by saying it but by doing it. The same love that God expressed by Christ coming to a sinful and unworthy people. We are called to love not just the worthy and wonderful, but all people, even the people that are a real pain.
So this can be our secret Christmas. Not the one of inflatable snowmen and crushing debt, but one where we extend grace, hospitality and love to our neighbors and to strangers. This is where we act as God did on this night. We too can enter into mundane circumstances and show forth the love of God. Declaring as the multitude of angels do tonight, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”