The Lowe-Down

I can tell it is nearly Christmas time because an obscenely large inflatable Santa just appeared in the front yard of a neighbor’s house. And this is just the beginning! In recent years the desire to turn the family home into the gaudiest, brightest, most ridiculous light-polluting Christmas display has well and truly taken hold. So much so that it is now the basis for the latest Christmas movie, “Candy Cane Lane”, featuring comedian Eddie Murphy. IMDb describes the plot: “A man is determined to win the neighborhood’s annual Christmas decorating contest. He makes a pact with an elf to help him win–and the elf casts a spell that brings the 12 days of Christmas to life, which brings unexpected chaos to town.” Having seen the trailer, I’m not sure if I would find the movie amusing or horrifying!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Christmas Grinch. I love a tasteful display of Christmas lights and I am sometimes impressed by some of the displays around town. What I can’t help wondering is whether, in the face of so much that is wrong in the world, we have all but given up on hoping for things like peace and good cheer and settled instead for the satisfaction of a colorfully decorated front yard. Taking our cue from another recently released movie, “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” we are reminded in the tag line that “Everyone hungers for something”. So, what hunger does our addiction with over-the-top Christmas displays point to? I think it speaks to our need for hope. In the face of alarm at rising youth suicide rates in America, Harvard social scientist, Robert Putnam, said “It proves that society has got a crisis of hopelessness”. When our newsfeeds are full of wars, environmental disasters, climate doomerism, abuse and corruption, it is no wonder we struggle to feel optimistic about the state of the world. When the dominant narratives of our TV shows and our movies are nuclear disasters, environmental disasters, zombie apocalypse and dystopian futures, it suggests that we are even losing the ability to imagine hope. It is well documented that mental health concerns in Australia have escalated dramatically in recent years and especially so in young people. Are we raising a whole generation with no hope?

And yet, we put up Christmas lights. German theologian Jürgen Moltmann defines hope as “a stubborn desire, stemming from difficult times and oppression, to see a better, alternative future.” I wonder if our fixation with the Christmas display is in fact a product of our tenacious human desire to hope for a better future. A light in the darkness. A reclaiming of joy and life at least in our own little patch of dirt. And if that is the case then perhaps the bigger and brighter the displays, the better. Drawing again from The Hunger Games, President Snow observes, “Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it’s contained.”

It makes sense that the Christmas season draws us towards a desire to rediscover hope. For all its commercial baggage and disputed origins, the Christian message still gives shape to the things we celebrate. And that Christian message is one of hope. Czech playwright Vaclav Havel, in his 1997 book, The Art of the Impossible, underlined our having a “universal sense of responsibility” to our communities and to each other: “Genuine hope is humanity’s profound and essentially archetypal certainty … that our life on this earth is not just random.” Christian hope goes a step further and says our life on earth not just random, it is in fact the work of a loving creator. Our sense of responsibility to one another reflects the character of the God who created us. Our sense that the world is not as it should be is a recognition that the created order has been damaged and needs repair. Author J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote, “Christians understand why human beings cannot get rid of those longings. They are memory trees. Deep inside our soul, they are memory trees of what the world was created to be, but it’s not, because we turned away from God. That’s what the whole Bible is about.”

The Christian hope is not so much that we will go to heaven and more that heaven will come to us! And in the Christmas story that hope begins to take shape in the form of a humble birth – the creator God becomes a created being. As Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians, “He was like God in every way, but he did not think that his being equal with God was something to use for his own benefit. Instead, he gave up everything, even his place with God. He accepted the role of a servant, appearing in human form.” (Philippians 2:6-7)

Author and Pastor Tim Keller said this about the Christian hope in a radio interview in 2017:

“Now, let me just tell you four things about the Christian hope that are unparalleled. That is to say, you’re not going to get your deepest hopes satisfied by affluence. You’re not going to get your deepest hopes satisfied by Capitalism, or Communism, or Socialism, or by any particular human ingenuity. So, how will you? Well, here’s the Christian hope. This Christian hope is, and I’ll just give you four things. It’s historical, it’s powerful, it’s personal, it’s wonderful. Okay? Let’s go through those quick.

The Christian hope is this. Jesus Christ, a human being Who lived and died in history, then was raised from the dead, and He was raised from the dead in history, and He was seen, and this proves that there is something beyond the grave. This proves that there is something, there is a transcendent reality beyond this imminent reality, and that’s what’s going to satisfy our hopes.” (https://richardesimmons3.com/lifes-great-hope-q-tim-keller/)

Not everyone who puts up grand Christmas displays has a clear picture of this Christian hope in mind. But the very act of creating this patch of light and fun and joy in the darkness of the night speaks to our shared and very human longing, our hope, for a better world. And that seems like a pretty good place to start.

May the lights of Christmas fill you with renewed hope for the world and remind you of the Christian hope that rests on the person of Jesus and the desire for heaven on earth.