Post 29--Nostalgia and Christmas Faith

                  

There are several columnists in the Vancouver Sun whom I enjoy reading—most of the time.  Douglas Todd is at the heap of the pile, but definitely Pete McMartin is another. There is quite a difference between the two, with Todd writing about religions and ethical stuff, while McMartin often writes lighter stories of human interest. 

McMartin’s column of December 20 is an interesting mix of raccoons digging up his lawn and a walk to the beach leading him and his companion(s)—wife? family?—into a woodlot whose plants and birds he describes in some detail.  All of this is an attempt to get away from it all for just a few moments, “it all” referring especially to the busyness of Christmas. He experiences the season as one “encrusted with obligations” and wonders “why the whole thing hadn’t collapsed under its weight years ago, why we hadn’t tired of the exertion of it.” 

And then comes the real nostalgic part. “A lot has been lost in the distance between the manger and the mall—faith, in particular, for many of us—but what has remained is the yearning for something to fill up that space.”  He is, of course, hardly the only one to suffer Christmas nostalgia. I recall a couple of years ago a downtown preacher introducing the Christmas hymn sing with the words, “the songs which we all used to believe in.”  We may still go through some of the motions, but it is all superficial without real content for many—McMartin’s empty space.

Then he suggests some potential replacements for that Christmas faith of old: compassion, family or “a new religion to replace the old, maybe this one grounded more in earth than in heaven.”  Frankly, I put the onus on our Christian churches for this loss of faith among our general populace. If after all these years they have not been able to teach and demonstrate that the Christian gospel is as much about earth as it is about heaven, then I come close to advising them to just close their doors and sell their real estate. They have wasted everyone’s time and money and misled the people along a dead end trail. The so-called mainline liberal churches have long emphasized an earthly gospel; the evangelicals and fundamentalists, a more heavenly version.  Shame on the whole works!  I saw it happening from afar during my 30 years in Nigeria; now I see it happening close up. I believe some churches, particularly evangelicals, are waking up to embrace both heaven and earth,  but it may well be too little too late. 

Yes, our Christmas season has a way of pushing the nostalgia button in many of us, including yours truly. I remember the Christmases in my birth country and birth family of ten children with all the cheer and joy, but without the gifts since by tradition these came on December 5. I remember the Nigerian Christmas tables laden with delicious Nigerian foods and surrounded by various groups of international friends. Now that we are in Vancouver, we keenly feel the loneliness that characterizes this secular city, what with all our children and grandchildren living abroad.  Yes, there is nostalgia even for me.

However, there is also more than nostalgia; the basic meaning and joy of Christmas remain in tact for me. I am grateful that not everyone has caved in to this nostalgia and that I can still celebrate in the company of believers a more meaningful Christmas of the birth of a Son of whom it was prophesied many centuries earlier:

For a Child has been born—for us!
    the gift of a Son—for us!
He’ll take over
    the running of the world.
His names will be: Amazing Counselor,
    Strong God,
Eternal Father,
    Prince of Wholeness (or Peace).
His ruling authority will grow,
    and there’ll be no limits to the wholeness He brings.

Merry Christmas!