One of the Christmas season’s traditions at least for me was continued this past week when “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was shown on television. Though decades old, it remains an upbeat yet conscience pricking challenge about what is the meaning of Christmas for us all. It’s message is simple and profound: Christmas ought to be about Christ.
Initially the focus of the characters is on what they want for Christmas. Lucy, mulling over what she expects in gifts decides that this year she wants real estate. Sally, Charlie Brown’s sister, writes a letter to Santa Claus detailing her long wish list. She concludes by writing,” make it easy on yourself, Santa, and send money, preferably 10s and 20s”. Charlie Brown and Scripture quoting Linus fight a lonely battle as they try to direct the Christmas pageant to focus on the real spirit of Christmas, the gift of God’s only son. These cartoon characters challenge us to reflect on what is the real spirit of Christmas for us? What is on our wish list?
Our readings today can help us remember the gifts that should be on our list, the gifts that come only when we remember that Christmas is about Christ, his coming into history at Bethlehem, his coming into our hearts each day especially through His Church and the Holy Eucharist, and his coming at the end of time to judge the living and the dead as the Creed proclaims.
The first reading from Isaiah was written centuries before the birth of Christ and describes what the Savior, the Messiah will be like. “The spirit of the Lord” will rest upon him. The gifts of the Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, reverence, and fear of the Lord, awe of the Lord. Jesus fulfills that prophecy, possesses those gifts, and passes them on to us through the sacraments of baptism and confirmation. They are gifts that money cannot buy and which we can share.
A priest led a 28 member wrestling team into a restaurant on the way home from a meet. Horror came over the faces of the restaurant workers and some customers as the teenagers noisily walked in. When the pizza arrived, one of the boys shouted over the top of the noise, “Quiet down, Father is going to say grace”. The entire restaurant became quiet. The blessing ended and the lighthearted banter returned. One of the other customers picked up the tab. He later wrote the priest that he had not been to church in many years, but seeing the boys having fun yet also prayerful brought back memories when Church and faith had been important to him. He had since returned to the Church and was reconnecting with his abandoned faith. Those boys, the priest noted, had given that man the gift Jesus gives us, the spirit of the Lord. Is there someone this Christmas to whom you might give that gift?
St. Paul in the 2nd reading was writing to the Christians in Rome who were divided even within families, not unlike us, and immobilized by fear of persecution, not unlike many around the world. He urged on them the gifts of patient endurance and hope-filled encouragement which he reassures them will lead to greater harmony and less anxiety. These too are gifts that money cannot buy yet are in short supply in our day, in our church, in our families. They too are gifts we can share with one another.
An elderly woman was a bit down at Christmas time, in part out of loneliness that comes with nostalgic memories of Christmases past with loved ones now gone. When she entered church one Advent Sunday, another parishioner gave her a basket. Inside was a fringed linen cloth on which was embroidered “bread shared with friends makes any meal a feast.” Inside the cloth was a loaf of cranberry nut bread. The gift giver said to her, “I just want you to know you have always been there when I needed you. You will never know the difference you have made in our lives.” Is there someone like that in your life who this Christmas you can give the gift of encouragement and appreciation?
Finally, in the Gospel Matthew reintroduces us to John the Baptist, a voice crying out in the wilderness of disbelief. In a way Charlie Brown is that voice, going against the voices of the times, trying to refocus attention on the birth of Jesus, on God. “Repent, reform your lives, discover what’s really important” they both call out. In the TV show Charlie Brown buys a spindly little evergreen tree with needles falling off. It is mocked by the others as too small, too ugly, too old fashioned. Yet once it is decorated it radiates a unique beauty that brings out in all the characters the true spirit of the season.
A man recalled when he was about eight. His father had abandoned the family and his mother struggled to hold things together. There was no money for a Christmas tree. She sent her three children out into the neighborhood to collect discarded tree remnants, like cut off branches. They dumped them on the living room floor. The mother glued and nailed, taped and tied them together into something resembling a tree. She cut colorful pictures out of magazines and hung them with string along with a few decorations from previous years. He wrote, “It couldn’t have been very pretty, with its single strand of six blue lights, but I don’t remember seeing anything more beautiful. Only God can make a tree. I saw him do it with Mama’s hands.”
Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas, for the coming of the Lord, for rediscovering the spirit of the Lord who came and comes into the world to save each of us. This is a gift we can share with others. Only God can make a tree. Sometimes he asks us to be his instrument. As we go about our busyness these next couple of weeks, we might ask ourselves, what will those who receive from me this year remember – my gift in wrapping paper which is beautiful to do, or my gift of the spirit expressed in love and mercy that reminded them and me that Christmas truly is about Christ. The gift he offers to each of us lasts more than a day.