How to Not Ruin Christmas
Christmas Day (Year C)
Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-4,(5-12); John 1:1-14; Psalm 98
Homily delivered at St. Mark’s Parish, Medford Oregon
24th December 2023: 7:00 p.m. Sung Festal Mass
The Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
Welcome all wonders in one sight,
Eternity shut in a span,
Summer in winter, day in night,
Heaven in earth and God in man.
Great little one whose all-embracing birth
Brings earth to heaven,
Stoops heaven to earth.
The Right Reverend John Chane, the former Bishop of Washington DC, once told me the story of his most memorable liturgical disaster. He was serving as the Dean of the Cathedral in San Diego, and for Christmas Eve, they had an early evening service for families, with full Nativity Pageant. One particular year, the Blessed Virgin was played by a demur 12-year-old girl who clearly was teacher’s pet at school: she organized all the other players, scolding when necessary and making admiring and praising comments as she deemed right. Among the shepherds were two brothers who seemed to be the opposite of teacher’s pets. During the main service, not the rehearsal mind you, one of the brothers elbowed the other, provoking a swift push back. The first brother fell, right into the thurible stand, knocking the smoking censer filled with hot coals out onto the rug, which burst into flames. Pandemonium ensued: shrieks of terror, crying, and jostling to get to the exits. The verger ran into the sacristy and returned with a fire extinguisher: a loud SHHHHHHHUUUUUFFFFF and a cloud of white retardant put the fire out. As the cries and moaning subsided and the children returned to their places, the 12 year old prissy Blessed Virgin was heard to say over all the rest, shooting daggers with her looks at the two brothers, “Look! Now you’ve gone and ruined Christmas!”
“Ruined Christmas!” How many of us have heard those words hurled at us, or hurled them at ourselves, either as kids or as adults.
“Ruined Christmas!” Whether it was late gifts or decorations, some untoward scene at the dinner table, spurred on perhaps by too much holiday cheer, or, if in church, misspoken lines or wrong turns in procession, a spectacularly wrong note in an anthem, or burning down the Nativity Pageant: “Ruined Christmas.”
But the Feast of the Nativity, or Christmas, is the Feast of the Incarnation, of God becoming truly human. We honor the birth of a little child into poverty, knowing that in him God is taking on all that it means to be human, including suffering and death. Yet we think we can ruin Christmas by not measuring up in one way or another. If we think that the feast can so easily ruined by human failing, then we have misunderstood the feast.
We often hear this time of year complaints that there is a war on Christmas when we try to wish more inclusive happiness on others by saying “happy holidays.” But this is mere tribalism at its worse: my group’s holiday is bigger than yours.
We also hear calls to “put Christ back in Christmas.” People complain about commercialization, too much partying, and not enough praying. This phrasing of the question gets the issues all wrong. It separates the partying and celebration from spirituality. Granted, some people see the holiday solely as a consumer or marketing event. The holiday is thus diminished, often becoming a source of stress and depression, something easy to ruin.
The problem, however, is not too much celebration, but too little. “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my whole being shall exult in my God” says Isaiah. It is not just “the spiritual side” of us that should rejoice. To want to turn Christmas into a sectarian prayer meeting rather than the public, boisterous, and commonly shared party that it currently is—for both believer and unbeliever—stems from bad theology. Incarnational theology demands that our prayer be common prayer, prayer in community, and our holidays be shared with others in whatever way they feel comfortable with.
The incarnation marks a radical continuity between our human lives and God’s, and that implies sacredness in all it means to be human, even things that we find embarrassing, demeaning, or silly. We often miss the point, wrongly thinking that somehow God came among us without truly being one of us. This “God incognito” is a total warping of the meaning of the incarnation. God became truly human in all ways (except in resisting God), and that means it’s O.K. to be fully human. In fact, it means God calls us to be fully human, and to do that he calls us to follow his example when he was among us, and not resist God so much. It is only thus that we can find our true and full humanity.
William Stringfellow wrote,
“Jesus Christ means that God cares extremely, decisively, inclusively, immediately, for the ordinary, transient, proud, wonderful, besetting, frivolous, hectic, lusty things of human life. The reconciliation of God and the world in Jesus Christ means that in Christ there is a radical and integral relationship of all human beings and of all things. In Christ all things are held together (Col. 1:17b)” (A Public and Private Faith, 1962, 40-44).
Incarnation tells us to accept who we are—gifts and strengths, disabilities and ugly deficiencies, and all. We must accept who others are as well. We must be gentle both on them and ourselves. I think that is the most important thing if we do not want to “Ruin Christmas.”
As God became truly human in Jesus, let us accept our own humanity, with all its limitations and failings. Let us follow Jesus, and try to live in his light. Though we might make every effort not to ruin Christmas, let us as a first step not worry at all about getting everything just right.
A happy and joyful Christmas to all of us!
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