Christmas Movies

Christmas would not be complete at the Jackson manse without a few “Christmas movie nights” where we change into our most comfortable clothes and settle down to watch Christmas movies together. Our three favorites are White Christmas, Christmas Vacation, and Home Alone. Like all good movies, these films evoke laughter as well as tears as we watch them. They also do something else – they remind us of deeper truths.

White Christmas was mainly written as a vehicle to accommodate Irving Berlin’s song by the same title. And yet, as we watch the story unfold with its forgotten General, broken dreams, and balmy temperatures in Pine Tree, Vermont at Christmas – we are reminded that while things have been, and currently are rough – better days are coming. It won’t always be like this. One day by the grace of God what has been lost will be restored. In fact, before God is finished, “we will be changed,” the Bible says. What we’re experiencing now is not how it will always be. Alzheimer’s will not have the last word. Cancer cannot win in the end. Brokenness will be restored, and sin defeated. The good guy will get the girl, the old General will be remembered, and the snow will come. In the memorable finale to this movie, General Waverly is again honored by his troops, Bob and Betty declare their love, and the background of the set is removed to show the falling snow. Everyone raises a glass, toasting as they sing, "May your days be merry and bright; and may all your Christmases be white."

The star of Christmas Vacation, of course, is none other than Clark W. Griswold. All Griswold wants is to give his family “the most fun-filled old-fashioned family Christmas ever." But everything goes wrong. First Clark can’t get the Christmas lights to come on; then Cousin Eddie shows up. Next the turkey explodes and Uncle Louis burns down the tree. To cap things off, Clark discovers that his Christmas bonus consists of an enrollment into the Jelly of the Month club. The classic line in this movie, for me anyway, is when Clark’s wife Ellen tells her daughter to stop complaining: “It’s Christmas Audrey…we’re all miserable.” In the end the Griswolds survive a holiday season that would try Job's patience, but it’s one that many of us can relate to. And yet Clark's faith never falters through it all. This avowed family man continues to count his blessings and in the end, all is well. This movie reminds us that even though our families often drive us nuts, there are few things in life that are more important than those whom God has put us together with. After all, the first Christmas was about a family too: Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. This Christmas as you gather with your family, lighten up; laugh a little. Be present in the moment.

Home Alone is about an 8 year-old boy named Kevin McCallister who gets accidentally left at home when his family forgets him on a Christmas vacation they take. At first Kevin is thrilled to have full run of the house. He eats forbidden junk food, watches forbidden movies, sleeps wherever he wants for as long as he wants to, and even raids his older brother’s room. But after a conversation with an elderly neighbor who is estranged from his family, Kevin realizes how lonely he really is. Being alone isn’t nearly as wonderful as he thought it would be. This movie reminds us how we often think we’d be happier if we didn’t have to answer to God – if we could do whatever we want to do. For a while we would probably revel in our newfound freedom. But in time we would begin to feel the emptiness and loneliness that comes from being isolated and at odds with God. Like Kevin, we’d eventually get homesick, even though we were still at home. Christmas is about Immanuel – “God with us.” We might think we’d like it better without his watchful eye upon us, but we really wouldn’t. The wonderful news of Christmas is that we haven’t been forgotten. We are not abandoned. We will never be “home alone” because God is with us forever.

Micah's Gift

One of the clearest prophecies of the Messiah’s birth is given to us in Micah, one of the Minor Prophets. Micah’s contribution to the Christmas story is often overlooked in favor of the more familiar New Testament passages we love to hear this time of year. The prophet writes, "But you, Bethlehem in the land of Judah, although you are small, out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.” Micah 5:2

It was Micah’s prophecy that the chief priests and teachers of the law turned to when Herod asked them where the Messiah was to be born (Matt. 2:3-8). But aside from being referred to then, and in the beautiful Christmas Carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” which is based on this passage, Micah’s words barely come up at Christmas. And yet what he said raises several questions.

For instance, why was Bethlehem chosen to be Jesus’ birthplace? Why not the much larger, significant capital city of Jerusalem, only six miles away? Why did God choose to honor Bethlehem in spite of its insignificant size and lack of importance?

And why did God choose Mary and Joseph to be Jesus’ parents? They certainly were not chosen because of their great achievements or because of the opportunities they could afford Jesus.

And why were the shepherds chosen to receive the angelic announcement of Jesus’ birth? Was it because they were super-spiritual, or men of unquestionable moral fiber? No. Shepherds in Jesus’ day had the reputation of being a little “rough around the edges.”

So why did God choose these insignificant people and places as key players in the Christmas story? One possibility could be that since he was a rural man from a tiny village himself, Micah knew what it was like to be overlooked in favor of more spectacular, significant people and places. Perhaps because of this his prophecies tend to point to a different reality, one that stresses that with God, hope can often be found in unexpected places. Micah reminds us that with God, it is common to encounter the unexpected and the paradoxical – often in unexpected reversals of circumstances. Hope arises from devastation; suffering embodies salvation; life emerges from death. Thus, when it comes to the nativity – the birth of the Messiah – Micah sees a coming ruler who, in keeping with a sense of divine irony, will arise from one of the least of the clans of Judah.

Micah’s contribution to the Christmas story is a reminder with God, hope and salvation will come from places and people that are seen as insignificant in the eyes of the world. Paul agrees in 1 Cor. 1:28 where he writes, “God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.” Part of the paradox of God’s action in the world is that what is of no account in the eyes of most people is often held closest to the heart of God.

This Christmas let’s direct our attention to the amazing Christmas star, the majestic angel choirs singing in the skies, and the three kings who came to honor the newborn king. But let's also notice the lowly, the least, and the unexpected and their contribution to the story. Those to whom a Savior born in a cattle trough seems most predisposed to relate to. This year let’s make part of our Christmas preparation be to remind ourselves to look for the divine where we would least expect Him to be. That’s Micah’s gift to us this Christmas.