Death for Christmas

So it's Christmas.

And in that sentence seems the entire motivation for writing this: happy twinkles in your heart, inundation of goodwill (especially from the local shops, whose saving offers – they seem to think – border on Richard Branson-sized generosity), and of course, the familiar story re-invigorating my imagination. I always like to look at it in a new way each year – the temptation to confine it in mental Christmas-card snapshots and childlike warm-and-fuzzies is exactly what shelves it among the likes of Santa, the Grinch, and that jar of fruit mince in your fridge for mincepies – they only ever come out on one occasion.

Just because that's what we do every year.

I'm not about to jump on the anti-consumerism bandwagon (though for Christmas, Easter chocolate and Valentines' roses I could rant for hours). But consider: why else but for silly sentiment do we drag boxes of dusty and tired décor from the garage and install it in the house for a set period of time? My little soapbox sermon today is not for anti-consumerism, but for anti-sentimentalism... and my thesis this year was on narrative empathy – go figure.

Again a disclaimer: I do not pretend to be a cynic on this issue. I, probably more than most, appreciate and generate the happy twinkles, and write about them and dream about them, and for ages can stare contentedly at the myriad of pretty shadows made by the lights on the Christmas tree. But I'm reminded of the phrase (probably paraphrased or misquoted, but anyway) that which brings a man to faith sustains him.

Why do you sing the carols? Why, once a year, if never at any other point, is the idea of a present God, Emmanuel, less offensive to you? Why, even if you see through the gift-exchange, because Christmas is actually about Christ, is the preparation of the traditional feast, the exact calculation and budgeting for perfect gifts, so extraordinarily important? If you come to God at this time because you like to keep it up, or you like the warm fuzzies, let me be another in a long line of people to try and pop that bubble. What is the distant mood of the Christmas spirit going to do for you during an existential crisis at midyear?

But I digress.

This year, I have been contemplating myrrh. (And if we're going to discuss wise men being brought to God by a star – that involves a separate post). I remember, in an otherwise forgettable representation of the story, a man presenting a gift to the boy Jesus, after the gold-for-a-king and expensive frankinsense were presented, saying “Myrrh is for dying and day of death.” It was perhaps a bit harsh for a children's film, but gives new context to “And Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

And perhaps, in keeping with my theory on injecting new emotions into tired narratives, I will venture a heretical statement: that Christmastime is not so much a time to contemplate warm blessings, but a tragedy. It's not difficult to be awed by the intricate operating bodies of newborns, the springing of new life in a tiny and complete human form, and yet here was one who had been branded at birth, like a Jewish child born in a concentration camp, marked for death. I don't know about you, but this year I find that desperately sad.

I have two friends whose dearest (and until now impossible dream) of having a child has just come true, and seeing this tiny person, so fragile and dependent, scares me terribly because I know (and can feel from their new-parent over-protective and by-the-book regime) how much the loss of her might affect them. Now consider Mary.

Now consider God.