There are ten million essays out there helping us understand what Christmas is (and I’ve written about three million of them myself). And it’s no wonder: The event of Christmas is something so huge and so profound, not even the most open mind can fully comprehend it. There’s always something more to say.
Nevertheless, this year I’d like to go in a different direction and talk, instead, about what Christmas isn’t.
It’s not a stick to beat pagans and atheists over the head with. Here in the states, we love to grumble about the “war on Christmas.”
Occasionally this means some local ordinance bans setting up a nativity scene on the town commons; but more often it means you go out to buy some batteries and ornament hooks, and the cashier said “Happy holidays” when they gave you your receipt, so you thundered back, “Merry CHRISTMAS” using your special scary St Boniface voice.
Don’t do that. You’ll wake up baby Jesus, and he just barely went down for his nap. If Christmas is as great as we say it is, then surely it gives us the room to be decent to each other in its name.
It isn’t the time to be on your high horse in general. If you have kids, or students, or parishioners (or readers!), it’s a great season to teach, to invite, to encourage, to illuminate, and even to correct, in the right context. But it’s not time to teach anyone a lesson like you would while thinking grimly, “Oh boy, I’m gonna teach HIM a lesson.”
So this is the season to avoid giving correctional gifts like a cleaning implement because they don’t clean enough, or a religious gift because it’s time they got religion, or a book on how to stop being so dumb and awful, or clothing that you feel ought to fit, but doesn’t.
It’s the season not to confront your racist uncle because of the bumper sticker on his truck, and it’s the season not to confront your wayward nephew because of his piercings and hair colour.
It’s a season that should include zero donations to the poor that you’d be embarrassed to give to someone you actually care about; and it’s a season that should be thoroughly devoid of letting your pastor know all the little things that have been bothering you about how the parish was run this year.
It’s just not the time. Not the time. This is when the son of God emerged into the world because he chose to have something in common with us – us, of all people! So that sets the tone. It’s not high horse season; it’s the time to get humble and recognise that we’re all fatally lacking, and that anything good about us is a gift from God. Proceed from that point of view, and you’re on the right track.
It’s not actually about warmth and togetherness and family and twinkling lights and yuletide carols being sung by a choir. Sorry, it’s just not. I really love all those things, and if you told me we wouldn’t have any of them for Christmas this year, I’d be bummed. But then I’d ask if we still have the Incarnation.
Actually, I wouldn’t even ask, because I’d know it. It’s not the kind of thing that gets taken back, and it’s always, always, always the centre of why we celebrate this holy season. Everything else is just gravy. And I like gravy! But I wouldn’t want a meal that’s only gravy. The incarnation is, etymologically, the meat, and that’s the part we can’t do without.
It’s not a make-or-break test of your worth or success as a parent, as a pastor, as a Christian, as a human being. If Christmas day dawns and you see that you’ve dropped the ball in some way – your family isn’t wearing matching clothes, or you can’t get it together for Midnight Mass, or your light display is feeble, or you never got around to making those special cookies, or your family spends the day squabbling over who got the best presents, or you didn’t get what you wanted and you’re disappointed but then you feel guilty for being disappointed, and all of these things make you feel like you failed?
I have news for you: You did. The whole reason the first Christmas came about was because we failed. As the old children’s primer says: “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” So yes, you’re a sinner. You didn’t do a good job. Nobody did.
I have more news for you! Unto us a child is born! We need a saviour, and we got one. That’s the whole point.
So if Advent and Christmas reveal some flaws in how we’re marking the season or in how we’re living in general, then Christmas day is the perfect day to beg God for help; and 26 December is the perfect day to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Christmas day isn’t a deadline; it’s a beginning.
So that’s what Christmas isn’t. What about what Christmas is?
It is a time of humility, of gentleness, and of generosity. That is what Jesus modelled for us on this day. It’s about extending these virtues toward other people, and allowing the Christ Child to offer them to us, too.