Peanuts, Popcorn, and Christmas Cartoons

When I was young, I would get to watch some great TV cartoons during the Christmas season. Waiting to devour a bowl of popcorn, I would anxiously anticipate the appearance of the “special presentation” logo and with abandon throw myself into the stories of Frosty, Kris Kringle, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Nowadays, kids can watch these cartoons any time, through iTunes, Hulu, and Netflix, but in my day kids could only watch them around Christmas time, which added to the excitement of the season. These shows reminded me that soon we would be celebrating the birth of Jesus—and that soon I would be opening my presents.

However, at my young age I usually “reversed” that order. If my parents or my priest were to have asked me what Christmas meant, I would have had quite a bit to say about what Santa might bring me for Christmas. If I had remembered—and that is a big “if”—I might have mentioned that Christmas is also about the birth of Jesus and the salvation of the world. In my youth, I had offered Jesus a backseat to Star Wars, and I had displaced the truly wonderful gift that I had received from God with opening my own Christmas gifts.

I could easily excuse my behavior as youthful exuberance, blame my immaturity, or point to the commercialization of the season. What I could not get around (even now) is that Linus—the character from Charles Schulz’s “Charlie Brown” comic strip—taught me better; he taught me what Christmas is really about.

Most of us probably recall “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” a TV cartoon special that debuted in 1965 and has been aired every year since. In the cartoon Charlie Brown—the main character in Schulz’s strip—laments the commercialization of Christmas and falls into an emotional depression. Acting as the resident psychiatrist, Lucy (Charlie’s ever-present antagonist) suggests that Charlie Brown direct the school Christmas play, and in so doing find some peace within the Christmas season. However, rather than finding peace, Charlie Brown instead finds greater frustration: the Peanuts gang wants to modernize the Nativity story rather than highlight Jesus’ birth.

Seeking to create a more appropriate mood, Charlie Brown and Linus (Lucy’s gentler and kinder younger brother) set off to find a Christmas tree for the play. As they leave, Lucy requests that they get a “big, shiny aluminum tree.” However, in the midst of the many extravagant and fake trees in the lot, Charlie Brown finds and chooses a humble, unassuming evergreen—the only real tree available.

Despite Linus’s misgivings, Charlie Brown returns with this tree to rehearsal, where the Peanuts gang promptly laughs at him for his seemingly poor decision. Shaken by their response, Charlie Brown cries out, “Will somebody tell me what Christmas is all about?” Responding to his question, Linus takes center stage and recites six verses from the Gospel of Luke:

And the angel said unto them: “Fear not, for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you this day is born in the City of Bethlehem a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men.” (Luke 2:10–15)

After recounting the Gospel’s “infancy narrative,” Linus states, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

Inspired, Charlie Brown decides to take his tree home to decorate it, to show the rest of the gang its true beauty. Charlie Brown borrows an ornament from the prize-winning Christmas display created by his own dog, Snoopy, only to watch the little tree droop from its weight. After crying out “I’ve killed it!”, he flees in despair.

Now sorry for their rough treatment of Charlie Brown, the Peanuts gang (inspired by Linus), follow after him, only to discover the humble tree bowed down by the weight of the ornament. Linus lovingly props up the tree to give it strength, and wraps his security blanket around its base. The gang decorates the tree with the rest of Snoopy’s ornaments as they sing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Upon returning, Charlie Brown is stunned as his friends shout, “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!”

Charlie Brown learned something valuable that day: the joyful gift of our salvation comes wrapped not in worldly glory but in humility. The Messiah comes not in earthly splendor but in heavenly glory, wrapped in swaddling clothes rather than royal garments. The small tree chosen by Charlie Brown symbolizes the truth of the Incarnation of the Word of God: our salvation resides in an outpouring of love, not in self-glorification.

We can perhaps find even deeper symbolism in Linus’s security blanket (usually an ever-present fixture; he does not leave home with out it!). As Linus recites the gospel verse, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,” he lets go of his security blanket. Linus has always depended on his blanket to have peace of mind, to feel protected, to feel safe. Yet, in this dramatic moment, he lets his blanket drop, symbolically reaching for the Savior to find true peace, protection, and safety.

Linus also wraps his security blanket around the tree after Charlie Brown flees in despair. This hopeful act suggests that Linus wrapped his fears around the Christmas tree, because perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). In the light of Jesus’ birth, anxiety loses its grasp upon humanity; our security is no longer in earthly vessels but in the Lord Himself. Like Linus, we might consider letting go of our own security blankets in order to offer the same gratitude.

The brilliant Charles Schulz, through his thought-provoking and heart-warming characters, tried to convey to the world the true meaning of Christmas. Although I now enter into the Advent Season through the rich services of the Orthodox Church, I still carry in my heart the simple but profound lessons taught to me by the Peanuts gang.

And, now, when considering my “Christmas presents” I muse: Am I presenting the Lord with gold, frankincense, and myrrh, like the Magi? Or, am I offering him pride, covetousness, envy, and judgment?

What do I really want for Christmas?

The Rev. Dr. David Mezynski currently serves as the Associate Dean for Student Affairs at St. Vladimir’s Seminary. From 2004-05 Fr. David served as Assistant to the Dean, and from 2005-09 as Director of Student Affairs, at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, South Canaan, PA, before joining the staff at St. Vladimir’s.

Scoundrels and sinners

Genealogies don’t mean the same to us as they did for ancient peoples, so the first part of this morning’s reading may be tedious to modern ears.  Most people will remember the list of strange names and forget the ending probably because a majority check out somewhere around “Amminadab” if not before.  By the time we get to the story of Christmas at the end people are a little glassy-eyed.  I actually look forward to it.  I like this reading!

Jacob, Abraham, and Isaac in Heaven (detail of Last Judgment fresco), 1408. Andrei Rublev, Assumption Cathedral, Vladimir, Russia.

Just a word of explanation about the genealogy part. Both Matthew and Luke include genealogies of Jesus in their Gospels and they differ from one another.  No worries.  Genealogies were useful for a variety of reasons, so it wasn’t unusual for a person to have more than one made up to cover their bases. Things like inheritance, land ownership, and vocation were at stake.  You had to prove your pedigree!

Since the point was to establish an ancestral link rather than to list all the family names exhaustively they were not as interested in getting all the names in there just right the way we would be.  Thinking of the size of Middle Eastern families that would be ridiculous anyway.

St. Matthew’s genealogy emphasizes that Jesus is the Son of David. He begins with David and moves then to Abraham, a double whammy for Jewish identification and backward since Abraham came before David! His predominately Jewish audience would be looking for that connection. His aim was to convince the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah and Davidic sonship was essential to do so.

St. Luke emphasizes the Lord’s human nature so he begins his genealogy with Adam to be more universal in his message. For his predominately Greek audience that would be significant. Luke points also to the Lord’s divine origin. He ends with “Jesus the Son of Adam and the Son of God.”

King David. Photo credit: The Temple Gallery

Both genealogies are essential for our understanding of the Incarnation. They compliment one another. Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of David, both human and Divine. As a human being he was specifically Jewish. As God He was perfect God.

The real story here is that the Son of God was born at all. If the Son of God had not been born in the flesh, then he could not have been the Son of David. The genealogy tells us that Jesus was a real, live human being with grandparents, uncles, aunts, and probably hundreds of cousins. Tradition tells us that Jesus had half-brothers and sisters since Joseph was a widower and had children from a previous marriage.

Some of the Lord’s relatives were righteous people, some were scoundrels. At least one of them was a prostitute. Just like our families! White sheep and black sheep. Jesus was a human being with an all-too-typical human family. I’ll bet their Hanukkah dinners were a riot!

This tells us another very important thing. Even scoundrels and sinners are included because this is the human condition. Things down here are far from perfect. The thing is that even sinners and scoundrels have the image of God in them. Whether we are righteous or sinners we all have that in common. Human nature does not become evil because we do evil things. Impossible! What God has called “very good” will always remain “very good.” That “very good” human nature we share in common is what Jesus took upon himself – your nature and my nature, everyone’s nature and yet He still remained perfect God and perfect man! But there is more! Then, he took upon himself our suffering and sins and bore our diseases as well and still remained perfect God and perfect man! This is a very great mystery! He took upon Himself the whole of the human condition from birth to death and beyond and remained fully God and fully man! He took upon Himself all that we are in order to heal all that we are. Why? Because He loves us!

Nativity icon (detail), 11th century, Tokalı Kilise, Cappadocia, Turkey. Photo credit: Andrew J. Frishman

At Vespers on Saturday night we usually chant a prokeimenon that says, “The Lord is King, he has clothed himself with majesty. The Lord has put on His apparel and has girded Himself with strength.” What is this “majesty”? What is “His apparel”? It is human nature. Human nature is majestic. It is beautiful! The crown of God’s creation. It is filled with God as is everything he has made. That we have dirtied this beautiful thing is not God’s fault; it is ours. What we discover as we embark on the interior spiritual journey is that no matter what we do, or think, or feel, underneath it all is human nature which sparkles with the light of God. It is the ground of our being, the truth of who we are. Those who come at long last through meditation and prayer to see their own essential goodness understand the core truth about themselves and their neighbors. The Son of God reveals this to us in the example of His own human/divine life.

Here is another great and strange mystery: we too, even though we are created, share this human/divine connection. In Him divinity is by nature. It is granted to us creatures by grace.

This sermon, “On the Sunday before Nativity: The Genealogy of Christ” was preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 19, 2010, and was originally published here. Fr. Antony Hughes (SVOTS ’87) is the priest at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA, where he has been serving since 1993.

The Divine Child

Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann was a priest, theologian, and one of the leading spokesmen for Orthodox Christianity in the 20^th century. Fr. Alexander served as the Dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary from 1962 up until his death in 1983. On this day, the 28^th anniversary of his repose, we honor his memory by sharing the following sermon of his. May his memory be eternal!

“The eternal God was born as a little child.” One of the main hymns of Christmas ends with these words, identifying the child born in a Bethlehem cave as “the eternal God.” This hymn was composed in the sixth century by the famous Byzantine hymnographer Roman the Melodist:

Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One,

And the earth offers a cave to the Unapproachable One!

Angels, with shepherds, glorify him!

The wise men journey with the star!

Since for our sake the eternal God was born as a little child!

(Kontakion of Christmas)

 

The Child as God, God as Child…Why does joyful excitement build over the Christmas season as people, even those of lukewarm faith and unbelievers, behold that unique, incomparable sight of the young mother holding the child in her arms, and around them the “wise men from the East,” the shepherds fresh from night-watch in their fields, the animals, the open sky, the star? Why are we so certain, and discover again and again, that on this sorrowful planet of ours there is nothing more beautiful and joyful than this sight, which the passage of centuries has proven incapable of uprooting from our memory? We return to this sight whenever we have nowhere else to go, whenever we have been tormented by life and are in search of something that might deliver us…

Virgin of Vladimir (detail). Photo credit: The Temple Gallery

It is the words “child” and “God” which give us the most striking revelation about the Christmas mystery. In a certain profound way, this is a mystery directed toward the child who continues to secretly live within every adult, to the child who continues to hear what the adult no longer hears, and who responds with a joy which the adult, in his mundane, grown-up, tired and cynical world, is no longer capable of feeling. Yes, Christmas is a feast for children, not just because of the tree that we decorate and light, but in the much deeper sense that children alone are unsurprised that when God comes to us on earth, he comes as a child.

This image of God as child continues to shine on us through icons and through innumerable works of art, revealing that what is most essential and joyful in Christianity is found precisely here, in this eternal childhood of God. Adults, even the most sympathetic to “religious themes,” desire and expect religion to give explanations and analysis; they want it to be intelligent and serious. Its opponents are just as serious, and in the end, just as boring, as they confront religion with a hail of “rational” bullets. In our society, nothing better conveys our contempt than to say “it’s childish.” In other words, it’s not for adults, for the intelligent and serious. So children grow up and become equally serious and boring. Yet Christ said “become like children” (Mt 18:3). What does this mean? What are adults missing, or better, what has been choked, drowned or deafened by a thick layer of adulthood? Above all, is it not that capacity, so characteristic of children, to wonder, to rejoice and, most importantly, to be whole both in joy and sorrow? Adulthood chokes as well the ability to trust, to let go and give one’s self completely to love and to believe with all one’s being. And finally, children take seriously what adults are no longer capable of accepting: dreams, that which breaks through our everyday experience and our cynical mistrust, that deep mystery of the world and everything within it revealed to saints, children, and poets.

Nativity of Christ (detail). Photo credit: The Temple Gallery.

Thus, only when we break through to the child living hidden within us, can we inherit as our own the joyful mystery of God coming to us as a child. The child has neither authority nor power, yet the very absence of authority reveals him to be a king; his defenselessness and vulnerability are precisely the source of his profound power. The child in that distant Bethlehem cave has no desire that we fear him; He enters our hearts not by frightening us, by proving his power and authority, but by love alone. He is given to us as a child, and only as children can we in turn love him and give ourselves to him. The world is ruled by authority and power, by fear and domination. The child God liberates us from that. All He desires from us is our love, freely given and joyful; all He desires is that we give him our heart. And we give it to a defenseless, endlessly trusting child.

Through the feast of Christmas, the Church reveals to us a joyful mystery: the mystery of freely given love imposing itself on no one. A love capable of seeing, recognizing and loving God in the Divine Child, and becoming the gift of a new life.

Excerpt from Celebration of Faith, Vol. 2: The Church Year by Fr. Alexander Schmemann, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1994.

Saint Nicholas

St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, 16th c. Russian icon. Photo credit: The Temple Gallery

The extraordinary thing about the image of Saint Nicholas in the Church is that he is not known for anything extraordinary. He was not a theologian and never wrote a word, yet he is famous in memory of the believers as a zealot for orthodoxy, allegedly accosting the heretic Arius at the first ecumenical council in Nicaea for denying the divinity of God’s Son. He was not an ascetic and did no outstanding feats of fasting and vigils, yet he is praised for his possession of the “fruit of the Holy Spirit…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5: 22-23). He was not a mystic in our present meaning of the term but he lived daily with the Lord and was godly in all of his words and deeds. He was not a prophet in the technical sense, yet he proclaimed the Word of God, exposed the sins of the wicked, defended the rights of the oppressed and afflicted, and battled against every form of injustice with supernatural compassion and mercy. In a word, he was a good pastor, father, and bishop to his flock, known especially for his love and care for the poor. Most simply put, he was a divinely good person.

St. Nicholas saves three innocents from death, 1888, painting by Ilya Repin.

We use that term “goodness” so lightly in our time. How easily we say of someone, “He is a good man” or “She is a good woman.” How lightly we say, “They are good people.” A teen-age girl takes an overdose of drugs and the neighbors tell the reporters, “But she was always such a good girl, and her parents are such nice people!” A young man commits some terrible crime, and the same rhetoric flows: “But he was always such a good boy, and his family is so nice.” A man dies on the golf course after a life distinguished by many years of profit-taking and martini-drinking, and the reaction is the same: “He was a good man, yeah, a real nice guy.” What do “good” and “nice” really mean in such cases? What do they describe? What do they express?

In Saint Luke’s gospel it tells us that one day a “ruler” came up to Jesus and asked, “Good Teacher, what shall I do  to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus answered him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but God alone” (Lk 18:18; see also Mk 10:18). In Saint Matthew’s version it says that Jesus answered the man by saying, “Why do you ask Me about what is good? One there is who is good” (Mt 19:17). However we choose to interpret Christ’s words, at least one point is clear. Jesus reacts to the facile, perhaps even sarcastic, use of the term “good” by referring to its proper source. There is only One who is good, and that is God Himself. If you want to speak of goodness, then you must realize what–and Whom–you are talking about!

St. Nicholas with Christ and the Mother of God, 17th c. Russian icon. Photo credit: The Temple Gallery

Like God, and like Jesus, Saint Nicholas was genuinely good. Real goodness is possible. For, to quote the Lord again, “with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Mt 19:26). A human being, even a rich human being who believes in God, can be genuinely good with God’s own goodness. “For truly I say to you,” says the Lord, “if you have faith as a grain of mustard see…nothing will be impossible for you” (Mt 17:20-21).

The Messiah has come so that human beings can live lives which are, strictly speaking, humanly impossible. He has come so that people can be really good. One of the greatest and most beloved examples among believers that this is true is the holy bishop of Myra about whom almost nothing else is known, or needs to be known, except that he was good. For this reason alone he remains, even in his secularized form, the very spirit of Christmas.

Excerpt from The Winter Pascha by Fr. Thomas Hopko (SVOTS ’63), St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984.

Come and see!

While the canon of the feast of the Nativity begins to be sung on the festival of the entrance of the Virgin Mary into the temple, the first prefeast hymns of Christmas are sung on the feast of “the all-praised and first-called apostle Andrew.”

In the gospel according to St John, Philip calls his friend Nathanael to “come and see” Jesus, but it is Jesus Himself who invites Andrew to “come and see” where He dwells and to spend the day with Him…

Come and see! This is the abiding invitation of the Church in her liturgical services. Come with faith and you will be numbered with those to whom “it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 13:11)…

The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew from the Church of Sant’Apollinare, Ravenna, Italy

Come and see! You will witness the mystery of Christ’s birth from the Virgin, His manifestation at the Jordan in His baptism by John, His victory over the devil in the desert, His proclamation of good news to the poor, His announcement of liberty to the oppressed, His declaration of the acceptable year of the Lord’s grace. You will witness His accomplishment of the signs of His messiahship: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dumb talk. You will see the winds cease and the seas calmed. You will behold the table spread “in the wilderness” in the feeding of the multitudes (Ps 78:19). You will witness the casting out of demons. And, most glorious of all, you will see the dead being raised by the word of His power. You will know indeed that “the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Mt 12:28), and you will testify truly that “something greater than Jonah” and “something greater than Solomon is here” (Mt 12:41-42). You will see what “many prophets and righteous men longed to see…and did not see it, and to hear…and did not hear it” (Mt 13:17). And ultimately you will see the Son of God Himself being lifted upon the Cross in order to give His broken body as food for His people, and His shed blood as their drink, that their hunger and thirst for peace and joy and righteousness, and indeed for life itself, might be forever satisfied.

Excerpt from The Winter Pascha by Fr. Thomas Hopko (SVOTS ’63), St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984.

Temples of the Living God

"She enters the Holy of Holies to become herself the 'animated Holy of Holies'" (icon of the Entrance of the Virgin and the Annunciation). Photo credit: Temple Gallery

During the first days of the Christmas fast the Church celebrates the feast of the entrance of the child Mary into the Jerusalem temple… The spiritual story tells how, coming into the temple, the child Mary is led into the Holy of Holies by the priest Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, there to be nourished by angels in preparation for her virginal conception of the Son of God…

In the festival of the entrance of Mary into the temple we have seen how Christ’s mother is continuously hymned as the “living temple of the holy glory of Christ our God.” She is praised as the “living ark which contained the Word which cannot be contained.” She is glorified as “the temple that is to hold God,” consecrated by the Spirit to be the “dwelling place of the Almighty.” She enters the Holy of Holies to become herself the “animated Holy of Holies,” the one in whom Christ is formed, thereby making her, and everyone who is one with her in faith, the “abode of heaven.”

…As we go the way of the Winter Pascha the choice placed before us is clear. We can follow the “narrow way” that leads to life, or we can go on the “broad way” that leads to destruction (Mt 7:13-14). We can, like Mary, cleave to the Lord and become His dwelling place in the Spirit. Or we can through immorality and sin choose the death of the nothingness which we are unless the Lord Himself lives within us. “But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him” (1 Cor 6:17)…

"Christ comes from heaven; go to meet Him!" (detail from icon of the Nativity of our Lord). Photo credit: Temple Gallery

The feast of the entrance of Mary into the temple marks the first specific liturgical announcement of the birth of Christ. On this festival, for the first time in the season, the canon of the Nativity of Christ is sung at the festal vigil.

Christ is born; glorify Him!
Christ comes from heaven; go to meet Him!

Excerpt from The Winter Pascha by Fr. Thomas Hopko (SVOTS ’63), St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984.