I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel.
~ Charlie Brown
In the classic animated television special, A Charlie Brown Christmas made by Charles M. Schulz, we see the very relatable character Charlie go on a journey to discover the true meaning of Christmas. Charlie talks to his friend Lucy and she implies that involvement is the key to enjoy Christmas and she encourages him to busy himself by directing the Children’s Christmas play. Charlie's little sister Sally reveals what she values at Christmas time, which is expensive gifts like real estate. The mere admission of this makes Charlie miserable. So Charlie becomes the director of the play, as Lucy suggested, only to find himself gloomy and wanting.
Frustrated, Charlie leaves the other children to find a Christmas tree for the play with Linus. Upon arriving at the tree farm, all he sees are terrible, inauthentic tin trees that only seem to knock at the nagging feeling that nothing is real anymore. It’s all fake and performative. Everything, even tree’s, are just pretending. Until he sees one little tree. It’s pretty damaged but he likes it because at least it’s real. However, yet again, his friends don’t like his purchase and chastise him for his “stupid” choices. Feeling like a failure, as he always does, Charlie finally gives up.
He shouts,"isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?" In comes Linus with the perfect Sunday school answer to dunk on all the other kids by quoting Luke 2. He recites the Christmas story in the most wonderfully sweet way, which makes Charlie Brown entirely satisfied and happy forever. Right? Not really.
He walks away smiling with the words hanging in his head but ultimately Charlie still struggles. After trying in his own strength to reject commercialism and care for his tree, he fails again and pronounces that everything he touchs gets ruined. He's really done this time. For some reason after the Bible is read, he still can’t get a handle on his feelings - he still finds himself discouraged. Charlie is the embodiment of existential dread and confusion. Which is a state we all find ourselves in at some point.
Fortunatley for Charlie, after a second look, his friends see what he saw all along. The tree isn’t so bad, it just needs a little love. And after they take time to love the tree with snoopy’s decorations, the tree becomes something beautiful. Charlie is shocked and amazed at the sight of his newly loved tree. This joy sparks them all to shout-sing in unison, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, in the most wonderful way. The end.
Here's a question - why didn’t the story finish with Linus reciting Luke 2? Shouldn’t that have solved all of Charlie’s problems? In my opinion, I don’t think so. I believe the tree ending is perfect. Because it seems to be the more realistic way we actually learn lessons - once we've fully given up and come to the end of ourselves. The Word of God is so often made real to us when we encounter it incarnationally. When we see it's truth in the situations around us. And God is gracious to show us, if we’d just pay attention. Charlie got to see something broken be loved into beauty. It was a parable of the story Linus told earlier. And he got to see it with his own eyes.
The tree is Charlie. And so are we. Because Christ came, the old can become new. The shattered can be restored. The humiliated can be glorified. The lost can be found. Charlie’s dreadful observations of the superficial people and things around him could finally find hope in the presence of a Saviour who came not for the healthy but the sick. He came to heal the broken and answer our questions of existential dread. Jesus see’s behind the facade’s we encounter all around us and He desires to reach behind the curtain and reveal the truth. The Savior turns wilted, bent and broken things like us into loved works of grace. This is His specialty. And it is good news of great joy for all people.
And that is what Christmas is all about.
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