Christmas eve was magical growing up. There was the Christmas Eve service with cousins crammed together in church, the twinkling Christmas trees that seemed to stretch into the sky, and the carols, especially “Silent Night” by candlelight. Afterwards, we’d head to Grandma’s house for an eclectic collection of delicacies including fried oysters, pickled herring, cookies, sweet breads, and hot apple cider. A pageant performed by the cousins somehow featuring both “Away in the Manger” and “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” was sure to come, followed by loads of presents, some from Grandma or aunts and uncles, and others from Secret Santas. The house was warm and filled with family, laughter, amazing aromas, wrapping paper, and a tree much too large for the tiny house. When I close my eyes I can transport myself back to that place. Magic.
This year I’ll be staying home for Christmas. Although we considered traveling to spend time with family, my sister’s husband is a frontline healthcare worker in a hospital that’s been hit hard with COVID- 19 cases. We thought it best to stay put for reasons of both health and equity. Thus a Christmas season stripped of much of its trappings. No loading into cars to carol with friends. No parties. No cousins. No hugs from Mom.
I might be tempted to say it just won’t be Christmas, but that makes me ask the most fundamental question, “What is Christmas anyway?”
There wasn’t much family cheer for Mary and Joseph, shut out of the Inn that first Christmas. There were no pageants or trees, there were no parties. Instead God wrapped himself in human form that first Christmas. He became a baby, born to a peasant girl among the barnyard animals. Why?
On that first Christmas, God was offering the solution to the basic human problem. Simply put, we tend to miss the mark – we mess up. There has never been a Christmas free of tragedy or pain, and most of the time that’s because of our propensity to hurt each other. The Bible calls it sin.
Like many folks I tend to idealize the past. The truth is that one Christmas most of my cousins got the stomach flu, sometimes my aunts and uncles got into arguments, once some family members refused to get together at all. Christmas wasn’t always perfect.
On a far larger scale, the scope of human sin has repeatedly gone off the charts at Christmas. Jewish men, women, and children were starved and murdered in Germany at Christmas time in 1942. Fort Worth, Texas marked the Christmas season of 1921 with KKK rallies and lynchings. The Christmas Truce of 1914 was beautiful, but it didn’t last. The war dragged on for four more years, culminating in the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918. Nearly 300 mostly unarmed Lakota men, women, and children were massacred at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, just a few days after Christmas in 1893.
Sin separates us from God and opens up a chasm between my neighbor and me. It creates thick oozing pits of distrust and hatred. It causes us to dehumanize each other in God’s name. Christ was born in Bethlehem to show us a better way – to teach us how to truly be human, and to carry our sin upon his own shoulders to the cross. He loved us so much he died for us – but then he conquered death itself so that we might have the hope of life abundant and free forever. None of us deserve this sort of love, but God gives it freely, and that’s the gift of Christmas – love given freely.
Mary and Joseph trusted their Christmas to God. It didn’t seem like much at first. But God had it covered. An army of angels compelled a ragtag bunch of shepherds to check out the new king.
I like reading theology books. My daughter thinks that’s weird. I know it would be easy to start to think that my faith is some sort of intellectual agreement with this or that set of propositions about God. But Christmas reminds me that it’s not. It’s simpler than that. Christmas is about love and faith is about trust – God’s love given freely to all calling me to love in return – to trust that God’s got this – this pandemic, all my messes, all the hatred and mistrust in the world. He’s got it and because of that I can become who I was meant to be. I can bridge the pit. I can and so can you. I’m not there yet. But I’ll get there, with God’s help, by embodying Christmas all year long. That’s the magic of Christmas, and it’s just as magical this year as any.
Merry Christmas! God loves you. He’s got this.
Daren Blanck is the Pastor of Zoar Church in Tofte, MN, a Lutheran Congregation in Mission for Christ (LCMC). Pastor Daren holds a BS in Environmental Science from Bemidji State, a MS in Education from UW-Superior, and recently completed his MA in Pastoral Theology from Kingswood University in New Brunswick. In addition he studied theatre in the UK and trained for ministry through the LCMC’s Beyond the River Academy. He’s also a part-time teacher in Silver Bay.
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