And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a mouse.
I love Christmas time. There are so
many little schnippels left behind. It is a veritable smorgasbord of tasty tidbits
for mice. It seems difficult to believe that mice in C. C. Moore’s 1823 would
have been less active than today, but I suppose it’s possible.
Why are sugar plums not popular during other seasons of the year? Did the first stocking hung by the chimney have holes in it? How did the gifts of St. Nicholas and Santa Claus come about; and how did St. Nicholas day and presents for the poor on December 6 get mixed up with Christmas 19 days later? Traditions, where do they come from?
Holiday celebrations are often driven by traditions without always understanding where those traditions come from or what their meaning is. You have heard about the woman who cut the ham in half before baking it because that’s what her mother did, right?
I told Peter how important I think Christmas is, and how I keep pondering the sign outside a church that a friend of mine had seen, “If it weren’t for Christmas, there wouldn’t be Easter.” Wow! When I mentioned that, Peter made me sit through a rather lengthy monologue. I share it with you because I would hate to be the only one to suffer through it; I mean the only to have profited from it.
At
Christmas, people bring evergreens trees into the homes, but they kill those
trees in order to get them in their living rooms and then vacuum the needles
from those trees out of the carpet until next July. Why? because they are
symbols of everlasting life. And rarely do people talk about the Christmas tree
carrying within it the upside down cross of crucifixion of Peter (the
disciple!).
Lights strategically placed among the branches simulating candles or maybe sparkling reflected moonlight on ice crystals rarely lead to pondering Jesus as the light of the world. People hang those pretty globes of red and yellow and green and blue, sometimes silver and gold, without seeing the fruit Adam and Eve plucked from the tree in the garden.
Wreaths hung on doors or walls do not remind people of the crown of thorns Jesus wore nor of the laurel leaf crowns of victory and Jesus’ victory over death and the grave; they do not even remind them of the Advent season just past nor that the circle is the symbol of eternal life. When people put candles in the windows, they talk about how pretty in looks from the street, but do they speak of the tradition coming from lighting the way of Christ to our homes?
As you said, “this is a time of tradition,” but does it mean anything for us today beyond the sentimental warm fuzzy of childhood. Sometimes I wonder whether Christmas has become the metaphor of the Church. Does it just have sentimental attachment that gives a certain sense of nostalgic peace? Has Church become more about what we get from it rather than what we do to enliven it?
Is Christmas more about the presents to be received than the supreme gift of salvation received from the tree/cross? Jaroslav Pelikan said it this way, “Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”
Nickey, I’m afraid it is like so many other things in our lives. There is a process that we can trace throughout story and time. In Dialogic Imagination, M. M. Bakhtin calls the process whereby divine stories become common entertainment grotesquing. He describes it through the history of Greek mythology from its divine beginnings to theater in the Turkish marketplace and Punch and Judy puppet shows of the 16th century.
In the same way, we can see a direct line between the biblical narrative and South Park. Grotesquing is a natural process. It is the job of every generation to reclaim the importance of the divine story, thus releasing it from the grotesque.
If we ignore those stories as the “living faith of the dead “and act them out without thought, we, in turn, make them dead for those who follow. We move from tradition to traditionalism. We practice certain behaviors because they mean something, but then we just do them without thought.
If the process of grotesquing is part of what the Church is moving toward, then the presentation of a doll in the manger during times of seeking and needing life, may be the beginning of a process of grotesqued objectification that fails to present the living body of Christ among us. When that happens, we lose Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 2, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
I suppose the sign you mentioned makes sense in the course of history, but the fact of the matter is Christmas does not make Easter possible. Few remember the arguments that troubled the Early Church concerning the most faithful way to celebrate Easter, but it is Easter that makes Christmas possible.
Yes, before there was Lent, before there was a season of Epiphany, before there was Christmas, or Advent, the Early Church debated the faithful way to celebrate Easter. Should the celebration be a fixed date celebration, or should the cosmic placement of Easter be celebrated?
People had a record of the date of crucifixion. That day on the Jewish calendar translated to March 25 on the Gregorian calendar. They could therefore derive the date of Easter. Instead, the Church chose to celebrate Easter with the cosmos. Therefore, it is always celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox.
Calendars were not commonplace. Rome Chariot Repair and Insurance by Sparta did not give one out each year. So, if your birthday was celebrated at all, i.e. you were wealthy, it was likely celebrated roughly around the time you were born in the Roman and Greek cultures. In Jewish culture, therefore, birthday celebrations were considered pagan customs.
Philosophers and historians did come up with a process to determine the birthday of important people after their deaths because they thought that the day of your birth was also the day of your conception. From that date they determined the date of your birth. If Jesus was crucified on March 25, then he had been conceived on March 25. It followed that Jesus was born nine months later, December 25. Thus, my dear Nicodemus, we can state positively, if it weren’t for Easter, the event making Jesus’ life significant and his death on the cross the Friday preceding, March 25, there would be no Christmas, not on December 25 nor any other day.
This means that the event which has dominated our culture for so many years is truly subordinate to the event the world would rather forget. Though God’s promises to God’s people have never failed, though God’s steadfastness has never flagged, and though God’s love and mercy continues, humanity chose to rise up against God in the cataclysmic insurrection against Godself, that time of denial and rejection, where God is killed. Yet, in the mercy of God, God overcame the power of sin and death and is raised up from the dead, opening the way to everlasting life.
And so, the people of God come at this Christmas time to tell the story of faith again. The story is told through the lens of the crucifixion and resurrection, that is Easter, with pomp and pageantry, prayers and proclamation from the past, that is, tradition, in the words of the “living faith of the dead”. The body of Christ is again laid in the manger, the eating place, and we, like the shepherds of old come to “see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”
And arriving, we do not witness a doll in the creche, but the body of Christ, the bread and wine on the eating place, the altar. And when we have told of all the things we have been told about the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are able to altar ourselves and, by that altering, be altered. Being altered, we return to our callings, glorifying and praising God for all we have heard and seen as it has been told to us.
In these days when the Church continues to ask whether it is relevant in the world, let us enter into this Christmas season asking ourselves whether our tradition enlivens us or just makes more work? Do we feel empowered at the end of the Christmas season or just exhausted? Are we living in a world of vibrant tradition or a traditionalism that leaves us empty? Do we believe that, without Christmas, Easter would not be possible, or, without Easter, Christmas could not happen? Is there a tradition you cherish that you need to research in order to make it richer? What are the words we, like Mary, need to ponder in our hearts?
Okay, friends who are still with me, I don’t know about you, but I was somewhat daunted by Peter’s discourse. I had planned on asking what the tradition behind Danish Christmas plates was and which plate Peter liked better, the Bing & Grondahl plates or the Royal Copenhagen plates? And, who made the first chocolate covered cherry? Is it true that chocolate covered cherries make you cheery? How big was the bowl full of jelly? I was waiting for, “And I heard him exclaim as he rode out of sight, ‘Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.’”
Still, there is something to be said for Christ is alive and living among us. See him in the eating place—given for all people for the forgiveness of sin. This year, may you be filled with wonder in the history and the mystery of the savior Jesus, the risen Christ.
Merry Christmas, tonight and for twelve more days,
Your pal,
Nicodemus,
Editor, Theologian, Counsellor, Mouse
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