12/6/23
With decorations appearing in October (or earlier), Christmas music playing constantly on 96.9, advertising since. . . well, last Christmas, it seems like . . . it’s hard to realize Christmas wasn’t always the cultural juggernaut it is now.
Before the Civil War, Christmas was a minor holiday in the US, loosely observed if it was observed at all. When the Civil War ended, reunited families devastated by the losses of the war latched onto Christmas with its messages of Peace and Love. Five years after the war ended, in 1870, Congress passed the first federal holiday law, and made Christmas an official holiday.
But early in our country’s history, the Puritans tried to ignore Christmas – and if they did observe it at all, it was with fasting and prayer. When Massachusetts became a state, the Puritans managed to outlaw Christmas entirely! As our country grew, immigrants brought their religious traditions with them, and Christmas was celebrated more widely. . . but it still was not the phenomenon it has since become.
By the mid-19th century, Christmas was becoming less of a religious observance and more of a fun, secular holiday that revolved around gift-giving and family celebrations with food and drink. In 1823, the Episcopal priest Clement Clark Moore published “A Visit from St. Nicholas'' (or “Twas the night before Christmas. . .”) creating our modern image of Santa Claus by combining the legend of the real St. Nicholas with a New York Dutch plumber he knew.
Although Charles Dickens had criticized the US in American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit, by the end of the Civil War, Americans embraced his 1843 book, A Christmas Carol, with its warm, sentimental pictures of Christmas celebrated around home and hearthside. In 1857, “Jingle Bells'' appeared, and although it was written as a Thanksgiving song, it would become our oldest secular Christmas song. By the mid-1800’s, most of the familiar trappings of our modern celebration of Christmas were in place – but notice, it’s become a particularly secular celebration.
Then came the Civil War.
The first year of the war, 1861, saw Christmas celebrations among the soldiers on both sides of the war. There was still a hope that the war would be short-lived. As it dragged on, and the casualties of war sobered both sides, Christmas became a reminder of the profound sadness that settled over the entire nation. By the second year of the war, unofficial truces began to break out. Union and Confederate armies camped near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, entertained one another with their army bands on Christmas Eve. When one band started the sentimental song, “Home, Sweet Home,” thousands of homesick soldiers began to sing before being overcome with emotion, and the night fell silent. A few days later, they would face each other at the Battle of Stones River, one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.
Also in 1862, northern soldiers from the 140th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry encountered Confederate soldiers on the opposite bank of the Rappahannock, a half-mile below the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Reverend John Paxton later described that day, when instead of fighting, the two armies exchanged gifts and good will:
We had bridged the river, spanned the bloody chasm. We were brothers, not foes, waving salutations of good-will in the name of the Babe of Bethlehem, on Christmas Day in ‘62. At the very front of the opposing armies, the Christ Child struck a truce of us, broke down the wall of partition, became our peace. We exchanged gifts. We shouted greetings back and forth. We kept Christmas and our hearts were lighter of it, and our shivering bodies were not so cold.
It’s such a shame these unofficial truces were short-lived. If the power of Christmas could pause the war even for a day, why could it not do more?
I believe it can do more.
Which is why, year after year, we remind ourselves of the “signposts” of Advent: Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. That is why, year after year, we immerse ourselves in the texts of Advent that proclaim “good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners” and envision a new world where “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4).
The sentimentality and nostalgia of the X-mas holiday has a tendency to tame the revolutionary message of the Christmas holy day.
As I preached on Sunday, the coming of Jesus into this world is a threat to the powers of this world. Whether it is Herod killing infants, or Americans killing Americans in a “Civil War” (what an oxymoronic word), with the coming of the Messiah, there is a new kingdom that challenges and replaces the foolish kingdoms of this world with their violent, dunderheaded approach to conflict.
The invitation of Advent and Christmas is an invitation to join a revolution! Nowhere is it more obvious than in the passage we’re focusing on this Advent, the song of Mary in Luke 1. If you listen closely, you might be surprised at the voice of sweet, gentle Mary, meek and mild, singing “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”
And in this time of such deep polarization around the world, maybe the power of these texts and a robust message of Christmas might inspire folks to crawl out of their trenches for a lasting truce.