Global Christmas (Tenth Day of Christmas)

Last updated on: January 3, 2018 at 6:42 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

Global Christmas (Tenth Day of Christmas) 2018-01-02T21:25:12-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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sculpture-535638_640_opt Christians are everywhere and everywhere we are there is Christmas.

I shan’t try to “do” global Christmas. First, lest I become like unfortunate mostly white choirs “doing” Go Tell it on the Mountain where the choir manages to loot and spoil simultaneously. This is easy for barbarians, but to be avoided by all good people. Second, while we all celebrate, we do so in particular ways and it is the particular that we should never forget.

I will celebrate global Christmas.

Yet every year, every Christmas, I look at what my sisters and brothers are doing to celebrate and am filled with awe. I cannot understand fully, but I can understand partly. These fellow human beings are celebrating the truth, looking for beauty, and doing good. There is no place where Christmas is not centered in charity toward the poor. There is no place where Christmas is not about the coming of God in human flesh. There is no place where high culture does not celebrate with the best they have.

Secular Christmas exists, God bless the good in it, but All I want for Christmas is You, is not Messiah. There is nothing wrong with a bit of froth unless that is all you get. Secularism at Christmas is froth without the drink. All over the globe, billions make ready to make merry, because Mary said “yes.” We celebrate consent from a God that came only after a Jewish woman said “yes.”

Here is a rule to which I have yet to meet an exception: do not join a movement that is not global or capable of becoming global. Church errors are almost always crankiness in one particular people in one particular time. The minute the leader builds a compound and stops listening to people of different cultures, colors, or contexts, he becomes crazed. Cranks calling themselves Christians have attacked Christmas celebrations, but global Christmas endures.

I cannot be other than I am for good and bad. Nobody can be. Whether we inherit unmerited privilege or grace, wealth or poverty, we can add to what we are given, but should never be foolish enough to deny what we are. We have inherited much in our particular place and time: good and bad, noble and base. The way to know this is to see what others do. We cannot be arrogant when we see celebrations that are glorious, but not ours. We cannot be jingoistic when we see art that is someone else’s, beauty for God and another culture. At the same time, we can love our time best, when we know it is just one time and that other times will come. We do not have to despise our little corner of Christendom, because it is not so much. Instead, we can delight in our quirkiness and celebrate like the people we are as part of a greater whole.

We are a voice in a global choir that is not just geographic, but that hears the voices of all times. Never be the person who cannot hear the good, because he acknowledges the off key. Beware the soul who is very sure of his judgment of error in the past and never hestitates in thinking our way today is a great improvement!

Instead, I look at our little family traditions, my state’s customs, and our national culture with honesty. We are what we are. We celebrate the good and work on the bad, but we can see both when we are around others, hear their songs as they sing them, love their ways without appropriating them, and be a particular part of a global celebration.

Christmas is one universal message incarnated particularly: joy to the world.

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