(Alfred Debus Photo)
(The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday, December 24, 2024)
I have a photo of a Christmas family gathering more than 50 years old. I’m there, at the table, the quiet-looking white-haired boy.
The young lady on right, with the round eyes and beaming smile, is my cousin, Margo. Her brother, Gerry, is the enchanting young gentleman behind her. In the middle, looking substantial, is my father. My sister, Heidi, always a favourite German name, is to my left. Our mother, who went into eternity around this time, is absent.
To my right is my father’s sister, Ruth. With her husband, who photographed this scene, she opened her Kitchener home to me during a couple of seasons, including when I studied journalism. Tante Ruth, who’s now 95, helped steer me toward newspapers. So if you’ve ever enjoyed this space, thank her.
I have other Christmas memories. Some include, naturally, receiving gifts, and hugs, when I’d maybe smell my father’s cologne, so earthy. Yes, Christmas is for the world’s children.
Yet heartache, even scandal, can also be in family Christmases. Not that scandals can’t come any time. They can. Some families have wild skeletons in the closet. Most families know at least garden-variety scandal, the sort that still causes people to cluck like hens.
It’s something for the holidays. Because before the story of young Jesus gets rolling, before we read anything about Mary or Joseph or other players in the Christmas narrative that’s been entrusted to us through the centuries, this is what we get: scandal.
It’s between the lines, but still like laundry blowing in the breeze, this in the otherwise dry opening of Matthew’s gospel. Matthew starts his reporting with this, Jesus’ family tree.
The papers would have had a jolly time with it, linking names like Tamar and Rahab and King David – some of Jesus’ ancestral relatives – with scandals including family seduction, prostitution, and murder to hide adultery.
Then there’s the scandal leading to Jesus’ mysterious birth in Bethlehem, in ancient Israel. All those whispers and sideways glances directed towards, for one, young Mary, the virgin, unmarried, yet somehow pregnant.
Which is to say that the world can be a place that’s ugly, and dark, if not just plain dysfunctional.
My cousins Gerry and Margo, by the way, have different birth mothers. They were adopted, separately, then loved and mothered by my Tante Ruth. Also, my own family includes our adopted daughter. It comes to mind because, in a way, adoption is also part of this.
This is what, later, Jesus taught. The kingdom of heaven is filled with those who, like children, live with wonder and trust. Because when you’re a child waiting for adoption, you don’t say, “Pick me. I’ll pay for my food. And clothes. Schooling too.” Such false self-sufficiency just defeats the relationship.
Which leads to another note on the scandal of Jesus. Teaching about God’s kingdom, he talked freely about his power to forgive sins. He also had power to heal people. But Jesus otherwise rejected power as we commonly understand it. Further, he said we’ll be surprised to see some characters, and others not, at his kingdom’s table.
So it’s good to remember where we come from. Our humanness. Our childlike needs.
Because there is that darkness in families. Even so, a light came into the world to bring peace, even wellness, in the midst of one darkness or another, to redeem persons, and families, indeed to redeem the human family.
This is why, even alongside Christmas’ secular celebration, the historic Christmas narrative is so enduring. It has this unsentimental realism.
It’s why people are singing this season about “Emmanuel,” which means, “God with us.” It’s why they’re singing about this great light in the darkness, why they’re singing with joy.
“Don’t be afraid. I’m here. I’m with you.” This is what the God of Christmas says.
It’s a good news message for you and your family, whoever your family may be this holiday season. And it’s a hopeful message for a weary world.