Counting down

 Have you heard? Christmas is canceled this year!  

It reminds me of the moment in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves where the Sherriff of Nottingham, enraged by the antics of Robin Hood, calls for the cessation of various practices that benefit the poor.  Alms for lepers, merciful beheadings and the like.  But he ends by saying 'And call off Christmas.'  

Laughter ensues.

Laughter ensues because we know that it is outside the scope of any one man to call off Christmas.  You can't just cancel Christmas, you know.  Nobody can just reach into the calendar and pluck that day out of existence.  Goodness knows the Grinch tried to pull that stunt off in Whoville all those years ago, making sure that the presents, ornaments, roast beast and who hash were all spirited away and taken to a cliffside to be tossed over.  But as it turns out, his heart grew three sizes that day, and the only casualty was like one glass ball.  

The reason that the Grinch brought all the goods back to Whoville was because he realized that he was not able to stop Christmas from coming. The Whos still gathered in the town square and sang their who-hearts out, saying Christmas has come at last, as long as we have hands to clasp. And the Grinch thought to himself at the top of the cliff, that maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store.  Maybe Christmas means a little bit more.

Fast forward to today.  Christmas season 2020.  Fast forward to a time in which people are out of work, impoverished, and incapable of getting together with friends and family. No toddies, hot or otherwise, no carols, no gifts because you're out of work, and no parties.  Essentially, it's how the COVID stole Christmas, and it's taking massive effect right now.  There was a CBC story that I read recently that talked about this, and you can go ahead and read it for yourself.  What it boils down to is that for people who are out of work, who can't afford gifts, who won't be going to parties, who can't see friends and family, Christmas will be 'just another day.'  Not putting up the tree, not singing yaboo doray in the town square, nothing like that.  Just another day.  COVID did what the Grinch and the Sherriff of Nottingham could not do: for some, it canceled Christmas.  

Now, we did this to ourselves, you know.  Over time we did something to Christmas, something that we shouldn't have done. This is the fruit of the commercial Christmas, the end result that was guaranteed to happen.  When we took Christmas and turned it into the Holiday Season, it had to become something other than it was.  Something that was generic enough for everyone to celebrate.  But if everyone was going to be able to celebrate, they're going to have to celebrate in a non-specific fashion.  Not everyone believes in Christ, you know.  So in order to have a world celebrate this festival all at the same time, you're going to have to welcome them into what our Catholic friends call the accidents, but not the substance.  What do Christians do on Christmas? Well, they go to church, of course, but they also gather together to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  They open presents, and while they are together, they have a nice big meal, because they're celebrating something very important.  The birth of the savior, Christ the Lord.  They sing songs, drink festive drinks, play games, watch seasonal films, and enjoy the season.  Well, why happens if you want to expand that beyond the base of Christians who already celebrate it?  Well, you can do that fairly easily, by keeping the accidents, but not the substance.  If you jettison the birth of the baby in the manger, the coming of the King of Kings, but you still want people to celebrate Christmas....what's left?

Well, you can't just come out and say that the true meaning of Christmas is keeping the stores in business through the annual season of buying and selling.  You have to at least get a fig leaf for that naked consumerism, lest the individual understand that he or she is being played for a sucker.  So, if you want everyone to take part in the buying and selling and partying, you're going to have to make Christmas all about something other than the birth of Christ.  It's going to have to be all about family, friends, parties and togetherness.  It's all about the songs, the movies, the big meals and the togetherness.  

And that can be canceled.  

So these stories about Christmas being canceled or ruined or whatever, these stories are all about how those accidents are impossible now.  You can't have the accidents, and the substance, which can't be canceled, was removed, which turns Christmas into a grind that you can't deal with.  It will be an absolute grind to suffer through the simulation of Christmas this year, if all you're doing is having family meetings over zoom, singing Christmas carols to yourself, or decorating for nobody.  If you've been conditioned over dozens of years to believe that the true meaning of Christmas is all those things, and you can't have them, then yes, Christmas will be canceled, at least for you.  

But the reading from Zephaniah, well, that should cause at least some kind of adjustment for us.  Zephaniah which tells you that there is a massive problem with our complacency, with our buying and selling and fraud. Zephaniah that tells us that the great and terrible day of the Lord is coming, the reckoning which will destroy and enervate.  The day of the Lord that will demolish and despoil.  That day of the Lord is on its way, and will be here at some point, and should it be so, we will be weighed in the balance and found wanting.  That troubles us, and brings us at least some slight fear.  The fear of the Lord is something that has stuck with us even in our advancement, as we touch the stars and split the atom, there is still the fear of God that lingers with us.  The possibility that we might be judged is something that we put out of our minds, distract away, but in reality, it is always there, right at the back of it all, and it never really goes away. When someone suggests it, we get upset, kick back against it, and push hard.  But it never really goes away.  If we sit down and read the writing on the wall, it will be the same as the writing in Zephaniah, that we are weighed in the balance, and found wanting.  None of us want it, but it's there, large as life.  So what to do with it?  

The words in Zephaniah that talk about judgment, about a great resettling of debts, and about the wicked being called to tasks, those words can and should trouble us, and as the end of the church year draws close, we are being impelled by this time of year to look more towards Christmas than anyone else.  Not to the part that can, and perhaps has been canceled, you understand, but towards the part of Christmas that can't be canceled because it has already happened.  That's the real deal, right there. The trouble that stirs us up, especially at this time of the year, the trouble that bothers and plagues us, it does so for a reason. We can fool others that we are perfectly moral agents, but we can fool neither God nor ourselves.  And when we read through the writings of the prophets, that there will be a great leveling, we are troubled and afraid.  

So this year, then, now that everything else is on hold, canceled, or shut down, you can look at things a little bit differently.  You can say that for Christmas, only once we've lost everything that it was, is it free to mean something.  In some ways, there is a great blessing here. The fear and trepidation that we're all experiencing - threat of a virus, of civil unrest on one side, and a gnawing existential dread of our sins and damnation on the other, for once, there's no distraction clogging things up. This Christmas, now that the Grinch has stolen everything, there's nothing between you and the manger where the savior of the world is. The one who calms your fears and dries your tears, that savior.  And he is right there, in the form of a tiny child, born into this world just for you.  All the parties, the business that we all swear we're not going to do this year, we're not doing it.  The presents are going to be sent, the obligations are lower, the meal is smaller.  So you have time.  

Once all the accidents have been stripped away, all you're left with is the substance.  The savior. The one who has come to save you.  Rejoice in his presence this Christmas, maybe like you never have before.