Better News Than Silent Night: The Goodness of Christmas in Real Life

(Post adapted from a sermon at The Village Church you can watch here.)

Here is my confession: I like a clean Christmas. Throughout my life, I’ve been shaped to want a Christmas that looks like every Hallmark card I see on the store shelves and sounds like the Christmas songs I’ve sung since childhood. These days, my desire is manifesting as the longing for an Instagram-worthy holiday, where nothing is out of place and everything looks flawless.

Somewhere along the way, I think that I’ve come to associate Christmas with a time when hard stuff is supposed to stop, or at least can be ignored for a few days. That way, nothing intrudes on a picture-perfect holiday, and peace arrives because of a lack of disruption. I’ve been wondering, though, if those expectations and hopes I have for Christmas have muted the goodness of the news that arrives in Christmas.

Here's how Luke tells it:

Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger (Luke 2:8-12).

Part of my problem is that I can’t read this passage without the Charlie Brown music playing in my imagination, yet another mark of my desire for a ‘clean’ Christmas. The reality of this passage is grittier, even than Pigpen’s personal hygiene. The announcement of good news came to the shepherds right where they were, in the middle of the realities of life among sheep. It’s surprising in at least a couple ways:

1)    This wasn’t the kind of good news they were used to receiving. In the ancient world, especially in the Roman Empire (which controlled Bethlehem in those days), bits of good news would often be announced, primarily regarding military victories that were expanding the Empire. The technical term for those announcements were ‘gospels,’ and they were meant to bring gladness to the people who heard them. But for these shepherds, that news was a long way off, likely from places they’d never been before. How could that be good news for them, in the middle of their situations? The announcement of good news on the first Christmas was right in the middle of their situations, not some distant reality.

2)    Other announcements of good news were related to the birth of an emperor. The birth of Augustus, for example, was presented in the Roman world as good news for all people because he was a savior, a god among the people who would bring peace. Luke is clearly playing the announcement of Jesus’s birth off the notion that Caesar Augustus was a savior who would bring peace to all humanity. But the additional difference is that Luke is emphasizing the entrance of Jesus right into the middle of shepherd realities. Jesus won’t be a god from a distance, but God-with-us, who enters into the middle of hard, gritty reality.

This is why I’m challenged this year to let go of some of my hopes for a clean, perfect Christmas. The good news of Christmas isn’t that Jesus comes to insulate us for a few days from the hard stuff we’re enduring; it’s that Jesus has entered into the middle of gritty reality and is redeeming it.

One more note of some theological importance is needed: I’m not suggesting that Jesus enters into the middle of hard realities simply to make them disappear. That would be pressing us back into the ‘gospel’ of clean Christmas. The kind of good news that comes as part of Christ’s incarnation is that he has entered most fully into even the death-dealing realities of human life, it did its worst to him in his death, and he came out on the other side in his resurrection. The hope isn’t that we won’t endure hardship or death; the hope is that we are following Jesus through it toward resurrection. That is better news than a clean, Instagram-perfect Christmas can deliver.

If I haven’t lost you so far, I fear I may here: I’m not a huge fan of the song “Silent Night.” It’s certainly nostalgic for me, and I adore the melody, but its opening lyrics are part of the reason I think I’ve come to equate Christmas with a pause from life’s hardships, rather than the gritty redemption of them. “All is calm, all is bright…” sometimes forms in my imagination a bit of a Hallmark card. In fact, the subtle critique of Silent Night is one of the reasons I have come to love Andrew Peterson’s musical telling of the birth of Jesus in his song, “Labor of Love.” “It was not a silent night,” the song opens, “there was blood on the ground…And the stable was not clean; And the cobblestones were cold…” Maybe that’s not the image that we want hanging around our quest for a clean Christmas, but it surely offers better news than the gospel of ‘Christmas is a few days where I can act like the world isn’t broken.’ The power of the gospel of Jesus entering right into the middle of a world groaning for redemption as a woman in labor has got to be better news than, “the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.” (Yes, I’ve also got some theological hang-ups with “Away in a Manger.” 19^th-century Christmas carols tended to carry some odd theological baggage.)

Lest you think I’m a grinch in theological garb, come to ruin the perfect Christmas by critiquing our culture’s most beloved traditions, let me offer a closing story about my friend Jeff. He died yesterday after a battle with ALS, and I already miss him. Most of Jeff’s life was a gritty reality. Addiction led him to homelessness, and his body bore the brunt of all of it. Jeff experienced what I can only describe as grace-filled, even miraculous redemption, and he was never quiet about it. I still smile when I think about how wonderfully disruptive he could be when he wanted to tell people about how much Jesus had changed him. Jeff is who comes to mind when I think of the shepherds. Jesus was born into the gritty reality of their circumstances, and he entered right into the middle of the brutally difficult situation Jeff was in.

Our church meets on a university campus in a building adorned with a steeple and stained glass, so when people would come to visit, I think they’d bring with them expectations of a “Silent Night” experience. What they got was Jeff the shepherd, often proclaiming aloud the good news of a God who enters into the middle of gritty reality. That’s why I think the incarnation is better news than a Hallmark movie could ever deliver. This Christmas Eve, we’ll gather and light candles and, yes, we’ll sing Silent Night. But I’m really going to miss Jeff, a shepherd who constantly reminded me just how good the news really is.