Do you have a favorite Christmas movie? What about a favorite Christmas movie scene? Here are a few of my favorites:
When Will Farrell, the Elf, is in the department store in New York, and he hears on the loudspeaker, “Santa is coming soon!” and he goes crazy: “SANTA!!”
When Ralphie and the family have opened all the presents on Christmas day, and Ralphie didn’t get his Red Rider BB Gun with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time. But then his dad says, “Hey, what’s that behind the desk? Why don’t you go check it out?” And Ralphie’s eyes, behind those glasses, open wide with joy.
When George Bailey is on the bridge toward the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, and he’s crying and just wants his life back, and at the very instant when he says, “Please God, please help,” the snow begins to fall, and Bert’s police car pulls around.
Maybe the best of all is when Charlie Brown is directing the children’s Christmas play and he gets fed up with how commercialized Christmas has become and asks, “Isn’t there anyone who can tell me what Christmas is all about?” And Linus, with his blanket, comes to center stage and recites Luke 2, with the baby born in the manger and the angels singing “Peace on earth, goodwill to men.” And Linus says, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”
We love scenes like these, but we mostly love this time of year when we watch them—Christmas. Christmas is the greatest story ever told, a story that began long before Jesus was laid in a manger. It is a story that was in the heart of God before the earth was formed and the universe was created. This is the story of all of us, all of us created out of love, in love, for love, to love. This is the story of Emmanuel, God come to be with us in all our suffering and pain, but the one where God also suffers for us to rescue us from the darkness in the world. The story with the guaranteed happy ending, the happiest of all endings, the ending that was certain from the very beginning. It is at Christmas time, maybe unlike any other time of year, we come close enough to Emmanuel that we begin to realize how true this love story is.
THE GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME
If Hollywood had the guts to turn this story (at least the way it is told in the Bible) into a movie, it would be the greatest movie of all time. What are your favorite scenes from this greatest story of all time? Here are a few of my favorites:
The manger scene is a favorite, because it means God didn’t come to the rich and pampered, but the poor and afraid. When God revealed himself fully, he came in the most humble, unobtrusive, approachable manner possible. He came in the form of the lowly country carpenter, born into relative poverty in a backwater village. He came as one who had the legitimacy of his birth questioned. He came as one to whom anyone, at anytime, anywhere, can relate, because he is on our level. He came as one who is with us.
I love all the scenes where Jesus casts out demons, restores sight to the blind, heals the lame, and restores speech. The scene where he calms the raging tempest on the Sea of Galilee and his followers ask, “Who is this guy?” Who is Jesus? He is the “Stronger Man,” coming to show us we don’t need to be afraid any longer. Jesus has come to have a showdown with the evil in this world, and every time Jesus wins. Jesus has come to untie us from all those things that destroy us, even the pain and fear of death. The Stronger Man has come to “disarm” the power of the spiritual forces of evil, to rescue us so that we need no longer live in fear, addiction, loneliness, greed, or violence.
I love all the scenes where Jesus heals, especially because of the way he heals. Remember the one with the contagious leper? The lonely leper, with sores oozing fluids all over his body, plops in front of Jesus and asks, “If you want to, you can make me clean.” Jesus could have healed him with a word, but instead Jesus did the unthinkable. He reached out, put his arms around him, hugged him close, and whispered, “I want to. Be healed”
I also love all the stories Jesus told, stories that tell us exactly what God is like. Jesus described God in ways that were so much more in every way, so much more seeking, loving, powerful, near. According to Jesus, God is so much more than we could have conceived. God isn’t just a good, respectable father. He is a father that allows his son to defame and insult him, only to then run to welcome the shameful son home with kisses and a party! God isn’t just a shepherd, but one that searches all over the wilderness for just one lost sheep and can’t contain his joy as he carries his found treasure on his shoulders. God is the one that dances in front of the angels in heaven when the farthest one from God returns to him. God isn’t just a king who rules from a distant land, but a king that throws a wedding party for his son and invites everyone to the feast, good and bad alike.
I’d like to see the faces of the people in the crowd when Jesus got to the shocking, unexpected endings of his stories. The humble tax collector is considered righteous, not the religious guy; the foreign Samaritan is the one that acts like a neighbor, not the temple priest; the prostitutes enter the kingdom of God, not the religious establishment. The greatest is the one who serves others; the humble will be exalted and the proud sent to the end of the line. Jesus said you have a better chance of recognizing the Kingdom of God by being childlike than by being an ambitious over-achiever. In fact, you can acquire the whole world and lose your own soul. So those who recognize God’s loving kingdom, like a merchant in search of fine pearls, will gladly let go of the things they cling to so they can receive that pearl of greatest price. Jesus’ extravagant and shocking images make us rethink the ways we have boxed God into our own imaginations.
The greatest scenes in this story, though, are Jesus playing out in real life those parables, showing in living color exactly what God is like. Jesus sets his face like flint toward Jerusalem, knowing full well he will have to endure public humiliation and excruciating death. But he says, “That’s why I came.” Remember when Jesus took off his coat, bent down, and started washing the dirty feet of his friends, even the friend that was about to betray him? That foot-washing scene was just a preview of what happened the next day, as Jesus was whipped repeatedly with lead whips, beaten to a bloody pulp, made to carry a cross through the streets as people jeered and spit on him. He had nails driven into his wrists and feet, naked and hoisted up for all to see, hanging there for six hours, raising himself as much as he could to get one small breath, with the scourging wounds on his back scraping against the rough wood. Let that scene etch in your mind if you ever wonder whether God loves you.
But the greatest scene in this story, which is the greatest scene of all our stories and the ending to end all stories, is when Jesus comes shining through the tomb with the same blazing power that created this universe, leaving death behind, not just for Jesus but for each last one of us. The risen Jesus assures us we need no longer fear even death, and with the nail scars still in his hands and feet, he tells us, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
THE BEST SCENES ARE STILL TO COME
What might be the most beautiful scenes of this story are the ones that have happened ever since Jesus ascended to rule this world. Think of all the lives Jesus has changed since he ascended. People moved by the very Spirit of God overcame the cruelty of the Roman empire, halted infanticide, enhanced human life, emancipated women, abolished slavery, inspired charities and relief organizations, created hospitals, established orphanages, invented colleges and universities, and provided the basis for science and the dignity of every human that underlies our system of democracy. At every stage in world history over the last 2,000, followers of Jesus have preserved and changed civilization, especially during the darkest of days. “It is impossible to conceive how differently things would have turned out if that birth had not happened. And there is a truth beyond that: for millions of people who have lived since, the birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living it.”[1]
If you allow the risen Jesus to be born in your heart, I think your best scenes are still to come.
[1] Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life (San Francisco: HarperSan Francisco, 1992), 338.