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Some more Christmas thoughts in the same sort of stream-of-consciousness mode.

It’s been said often that Christmas is much more special with children around. I remember as a child that there was nothing in a year that caused me more excitement and anticipation than Christmas. I loved Christmas Eve most of all. That last anticipation, and the sense of mystery are powerful memories for me. Even later (and still today) I loved to be out on Christmas Eve when everything is still and quiet, especially with the deep quiet of snow falling.

As we get older, I think the joy grows a little deeper, if we let it, and the anticipation looks to promises farther out. I think Paul’s words in Hebrews show something of what Christmas comes to mean:

“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”

The days leading up to Christmas are something like a pilgrimage. I think this is something that we do less formally as Latter-day Saints (and Christians in general). I’ve gone to some of the holy sites of my faith; Martin’s Cove; Palmyra, NY; Nauvoo, IL; Kirtland, OH, and so forth. Even the shorter pilgrimages to the temple serve the same purpose: we look for a promise afar off, hoping for enlightenment and clarity, with a renewal of our commitment and spirituality at the end.

My favorite carol is “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem”. Phillips Brooks, the famous Episcopal bishop, was inspired to write the lyrics by a Christmas he spent in Bethlehem. The humble city and the simple story of the Savior’s birth are really quite amazing. What some call the Incarnation and we Mormons call the Condescension is astonishing in its humility. I’ve witnessed childbirth on four occasions, and it’s not a dignified thing. That Christ came into the world the same way all of us did is amazing to me. Anyway, I love the hymn because it makes my feelings about Christmas so clear. The LDS hymnal leaves out verses four and five, and many hymnals omit verse four. I’ve seen different variations tossed around, so I’ll include the ones I like best here (with one very small edit by me).

1. O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by:
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.

2. For Christ is born of Mary;
And gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love.
O morning stars, together
Proclaim the holy birth;
And praises sing to God the King,
And peace to men on earth.

3. How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still,
The dear Christ enters in.

4. Where children pure and happy
Recall the Blessed Child
Where misery cries out to Thee
Son of the mother mild
Where Charity stands watching
And Faith holds wide the door
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks,
And Christmas comes once more

5. O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in,
Be born in us to-day.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel.

Our three verses are beautiful, but kind of observational; verse four expands on verse three with vivid images of children and sorrow and daybreak; and then verse five is a prayer entreating Christ to become part of us, to make Christmas real (side note – the word “realization” has been on my mind too, in the sense of “making real”). That verse especially is what Christmas means, I think; Christmas without that renewed conversion, that reality, is anticlimactic.

My favorite SciFi author, John C. Wright, wrote in a blog post recently about how our modern life is missing something, and High Fantasy (maybe specifically the fantasy of JRR Tolkien, which is well informed by Tolkien’s Catholocism) helps fill that longing for us:

“Anyone who does not sense or suspect that modernity is missing something, something important that once we had and now is lost, has no heart for High Fantasy and no taste for it.”

I was reminded of the closing scene in The Last Battle, the final volume of the Chronicles of Narnia. I won’t spoil it for those who may not have read it, but it is the realization of Christian theology expressed through fantasy. This is a bit of a ramble, but my point is that there is something definitely missing in our lives, something we long for more keenly at Christmas. That’s what verse five above is to me: the filling of that void with hope.

(My minor edit: I change “pray to” to “recall” in the second line of verse 4. It’s a minor quibble; when we pray, we address God the Father. However, I’ve had times where I felt as if I was conversing directly with Jesus. In the Book of Mormon, when Alma the Younger is tormented by the thought of his sins, he cries out “Oh Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me!” Still, until my children have the grounding to understand these nuances, I want to teach them to pray to Heavenly Father.)

It’s interesting to me how often beautiful carols come out of hard times. “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” was Longfellow’s response to the death of his wife in a fire and the severe wounding of his son in the Civil War. The verses we omit today share some of that grimness:

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn, the households born
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote the following (I believe from his prison cell – emphasis mine):

“The coming of God is truly not only a joyous message, but is, first, frightful news for anyone who has a conscience. And only when we have felt the frightfulness of the matter can we know the incomparable favor. God comes in the midst of evil, in the midst of death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And in judging it, he loves us, he purifies us, he sanctifies us, he comes to us with his grace and love. He makes us happy as only children can be happy.”

So it seems that only in the helpless humility of a child can we plead properly for the grace we need, and only in the innocence of a child, restored by that grace, can we have that pure, childlike happiness. My thoughts this Christmas regarding children fall along two lines. First, to do nothing that would offend or interfere with the spirit of Christmas in my children, but to do everything I can to provide them with happiness and joy throughout the holidays. Second, I want to reaffirm my own conversion to Jesus Christ, to invite Him to enter in once more so I can rejoice with the angels, the shepherds, and the children.