Peace on Earth: Part 1
Contemplating the origins of the yuletide promise of global peace
“This is Christmas! The season of perpetual hope!” -Kevin McCallister’s mom Kate, as she desperately commands an airline rep to give her a seat on the next flight back to Chicago
This is a great moment in Home Alone, not least because it leads into John Candy’s hilarious (and very likely improvised) funeral parlor story. As we all know, Kevin survives the bumbling burglars who break in while he’s home alone, and he manages to clean up the mess just in time for Christmas morning, when Mother McCallister and family successfully reunite with him. Hooray! I love this movie. It’s a top choice at my house on the flick roster each December.
When you think about this quote (and I hope you will, dear reader), the words hold true as far as how folks often approach this time of year. The movie’s fantastical outcome does too. Whether we’re consciously aware of it or not, many of us walk about each year-end with an expectation that it simply ought to be a “season of perpetual hope,” when kindness and generosity abound.. dreams come true.. pain is minimized.. miracles just might happen.. and, even if only briefly, we will experience peace on earth.
But why? I mean, why have those expectations? Are they perhaps a bit childish, requiring faith in a sort of Santaesque magic? In short, why in the world is such an audacious expectation warranted?
A scrooge would come in now — stake of holly through his heart, naturally — and convince you that, because we can’t provide ample reasons for our festive yuletide glee, it is not an appropriate hope to grasp, and peace on earth (any time, but especially Christmas) is therefore a fantasy at best, or worse, a dangerous disappointment-in-waiting. Fortunately, I’m no scrooge. I mentioned my annual holiday flick roster, no?
Rather than throw the baby of Christmas Spirit out with the bathwater of lacking an explanation, I will instead offer a question whose answer just might avail us to a deep, true Christmas feeling. The question: What if Christmas is actually true? As in, what if there is an actual, historically-based foundation to the classic carols we sing/hear/hum this time each year — Joy to the World, O Come All Ye Faithful, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen? Could it be?? As Dickens characters might quip, What ho! Hi ho chirrup! Hilli-ho!
Take a moment, seriously. Pause and consider: What if all the shepherds, the baby in the hay, the frankincense & myrrh and the angels, were, actually, actual? Would it follow we have a shot at discovering true peace and true joy, the promises contained in centuries-old hymns echoing through cathedrals and churches worldwide every December?
Would you want to know?
Do you want to know?
Friend, do you think this is something worth pondering? Maybe you have doubts, questions. I get that; I do too. But if what we experience ourselves and survey around us each Christmas is actually a shadow of something more everlasting and joy-giving, then shewwt, don’t we owe it to ourselves to seek the truth of it? The worst that can happen is you scrape the bottom, come up empty, and go on continuing to enjoy whatever you can in the trappings of the holiday knowing you’re not obligated to the religious “stuff” of it.
As I begin work on Part 2 of this three-part piece, I will leave you with some lyrics. Here ya go, I’ll just leave this right here…
What if all of this were true
Emmanuel, how God came through
Is this more than Christmas cheer
Is this just a story or what if it’s real
Would I still be lonely, would I know fear
Would my worry hold me, could I be healed
I’m crying out loudThis year like never before
Jesus reveal a little more
To my soul would you
Show me just how powerful
You are more than a manger
Jesus the mighty savior
In my soul turn this
Merry into Mighty ChristmasWhat if in my silent nights
You were enough, You were the light
Angels saying “Do not Fear”
Is that still a promise, do you still come near
Meet me in my lonely, tear down my fear
Hold me through my worry, Lord would you healThis year like never before
Jesus reveal a little more
To my soul would you
Show me just how powerful
You are more than a manger
Jesus the mighty savior
In my soul turn this
Merry into Mighty Christmas
(Now head over to Part 2! Then Part 3!!)
This post was originally published on Facebook in December 2017
