Disciples, Apostles, and Saints!
It is hard to imagine a holiday in North America could get bigger than Christmas. Or that Christmas itself could get any bigger.
And yet, one of the most consistently vexing ideas is that we might miss “the true meaning of Christmas.” So many movies and holiday specials crib Dickens, with a Scrooge-like character humbugging through the season. It is clearly the most normative of ideas in our culture: that people don’t get what the holiday is about.
I’m not sure there’s an epidemic of misunderstanding of Christmas so much as the multitudes of meanings we invest in it. Nor does our tradition declare a singular meaning to it.
We celebrate the Incarnation: God made manifest in Jesus. But we also celebrate the multitudes of meanings that come from that!
This is why we can watch The Grinch and A Charlie Brown Christmas and say that they address the meaning of Christmas. And why many can come to church without much spirit at all.
Most of us do carry the meaning of Christmas with us in our hearts. We just probably carry other stuff, too. But that instinct to be charitable, generous, thoughtful, or courageous? That’s much closer to the mark than fretting about pageants, music, or greetings. When in doubt, incarnating Christ is always a good choice.
With love,
Drew