“A Charlie Brown Christmas”
”The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”
Another movie that uses the Christmas pageant theme is “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”. It is the story of Grace Bradley (great name) and her family as they take on the responsibility of directing the annual children’s pageant at their church. Grace is asked to step in when the regular director gets injured and cannot do it. She agrees to do so reluctantly and, like Charlie Brown, she finds that the real message has been lost in the details themselves.
Her biggest struggle is satisfying the “status quo” expectations of her fellow church members. “This is the way we have always done it.” “This child plays Mary every year” …well, you get the idea. Grace becomes frustrated and, on top of everything else, she gets pushed to the defining moment in the film by the involvement of the Herdman kids.
The Herdmans are a struggling family supported by a single mom working two jobs. The kids are unsupervised most of the time and are “behaviorally challenged” to be kind. Much to the dismay of the “regular” attendees, these kids get involved in the pageant. They are noisey…irreverent…defiant…and rude to others…but, their questions about the Christmas story and their fresh viewpoint of it begin to soften their attitude. In fact, spoiler alert…their participation, as well as their different interpretation refreshes the perspective of the most resistant members of the church who protested their involvement.
It can happen to any of us. Especially those of us who have celebrated Christmas the same way each year. It is not that traditions are bad. Quite the opposite, traditions bring comfort and meaning into our holidays. The temptation that comes is that we can get so caught up in the details…and sometimes the traditions that we forget to remember the message,
”Fear not, for I bring you good news of a great joy!” (Luke 2.10).
Charlie Brown had to deal with the distraction of the outside influence of the world’s commercialization of Christmas. Grace had to deal with the distraction from within…losing the simple meaning amid the all the details. Is it possible to be so busy “doing” Christmas that we miss Christmas?
Have you spent too much time complaining about the world’s interpretation of the season? Or have you allowed your “celebration” of Christmas to be a distraction from the joy of the simple meaning?
What can you do to take a refeshing look at the Christmas story today? A young couple forced to travel quite a distance…expecting a child. No room when they get there and the only option is a stable with a food trough for a cradle…yet, the birth of our Savior…our Hope…our Joy!
Merry Christmas!