The Charlie Brown Christmas Problem
Charles Schultz’s classic TV special “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was originally broadcast in 1965. And, a generation later, the problem at its heart remains as problematic as ever.
Poor Charlie Brown keeps searching for the true meaning of Christmas amid pop psychology, commercialism, and parties. Having seen through the nonsense all around him, he cries out for help.
“Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?”
His patient friend Linus, secure in his blanket and faith, then recites the nativity story from the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 2. And that solves everything, right?
Charlie Brown listens to Linus and, encouraged by this poignant glimpse of the Christchild, he proceeds to devote his life to Christianity: feeding the poor, striving for justice, and spreading the gospel of salvation through Jesus to everyone he meets.
Well, no, he doesn’t, of course. Instead Charlie Brown responds to the Greatest Story Ever Told by caring for . . . a Christmas tree. A little, real one, to be sure—not those crass artificial ones—and Charlie Brown gives it the place of honour in the Christmas pageant. Everyone else is touched by this humble authenticity, and sings a final carol to Jesus, “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.”
But what in the world does giving “glory to the newborn king” have to do with a Christmas tree?
That’s the Charlie Brown Christmas problem, and it remains a problem.
Most Christmas movies deal with the problem by ignoring it and focusing entirely on non-Christian elements of the season. “A Christmas Story,” “The Santa Clause,” “Elf,” “The Grinch”—all family favourites in our home—and every single one of the Hallmark Channel Christmas romances turned out by the dozen—utterly ignore anything to do with Jesus.
It’s weird, though, if you think about it. Christmas specials without Jesus are like shows about Smallville without ever mentioning Clark Kent, or Gotham City without a trace of Bruce Wayne. Who cares about Smallville or Gotham City without the heroes? Bethlehem and Christmas aren’t special if Jesus isn’t special.
But Jesus does have a way of showing up anyhow. A humour column in a recent New Yorker concludes with this: “I’ll end here, on the holiday I enjoy the most. . . . The day is ostensibly to honor a baby with superpowers, but it’s rude to ask too many follow-up questions about the baby, because he died.”
It’s so awkward to ask about that eventually-crucified baby, in fact, that most recorded renditions of “We Three Kings” ignore the third king’s verse entirely:
“Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume Breathes a life of gathering gloom;— Sorrowing, sighing, Bleeding, dying, Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.”
Good grief: that’s not very Christmassy! And yet celebrating the birth of Jesus makes no sense as merely a generic symbol of “new life in the midst of darkness”—the pagan idea at the heart of Saturnalia and other celebrations of the winter solstice. He’s just another poor Middle Eastern kid. So what?
The whole celebration of Christmas is warranted only if connected with Jesus’ later life, death…and resurrection.
—Which brings us to Easter, another holiday Hollywood and Madison Avenue can’t quite smother and absorb, no matter how many bunnies and eggs and chocolates they attach to it.
No, the true meaning of Christmas is provocatively angular, confrontationally specific.
Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on in that manger—and why. Salvation has come to a doomed world—nothing less than that, so, yes, “let heaven and nature sing.”
And if you see that, and see Him, you’ll have nothing but a truly merry Christmas. Even Charlie Brown would cheer up in the light of that great good news.
But if you don’t see that, then why bother with that tree?
What Christmas Is All About, Charlie Brown
The Van Pelt family has taught more people about the true meaning of Christmas than any preacher you can name, including probably the current Pope himself.
Since 1965, Linus Van Pelt has appeared in that lone spotlight on the school stage to recite the nativity story from Luke 2 and conclude, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” We all love that part as the theological core of the show.
But Linus’s older sister Lucy grew up in the same home and, earlier in the narrative, makes a different kind of Christian/Christmas point. (It’s not what you’d call obviously theological, but that’s what you read a theologian’s blog to find out, right?)
Just after counseling Charlie Brown about his depression at Christmas time, Lucy offers her version of sympathy:
Lucy: Incidentally, I know how you feel about all this Christmas business, getting depressed and all that. It happens to me every year. I never get what I really want.
I always get a lot of stupid toys, or a bicycle, or clothes, or something like that.
Charlie: What is it you want?
Lucy: Real estate.
We laugh at Lucy’s implausibly precocious ambitions, as well as her outsized greed. Real estate! For a little girl!
But Lucy’s right. When you can wish for anything at Christmas and you settle for toys, vehicles, or clothes, you are being pretty stupid. Lucy doesn’t want something that will soon fall victim to failure or fashion. She wants something real, as the dictionary defines it in regard to real estate: “fixed, permanent, immobile.”
Lucy paid attention in Sunday School. She remembers Jesus saying something similar in the Sermon on the Mount: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19-20).
And Proverbs 11:18 points in the same life-giving direction: “The wicked earn no real gain, but those who sow righteousness get a true reward.” Of course the wicked gain something: a bit of fun, pleasure, status, acceptance. That’s what toys, vehicles, and clothes can bring you. But nothing real: nothing that will last.
So, instructed by the combined theological vision of the Van Pelts, I am delighted by every toy, vehicle (!), or article of clothing I receive at Christmas, as each is a token of love from someone special to me and each will provide me with a certain, limited amount of pleasure.
But as I listen to Linus repeat that narrative, I remember what really—fixedly, permanently, ultimately—matters, around which all the other gift-giving revolves and from which all the other gift-giving derives its meaning.
And as I listen to Lucy express her aspiration, I ask the Gift-Giver for real—fixed, permanent, ultimate—matter, for an everlasting patch of ground in the New Jerusalem.
Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!
