Keeping Christmas

‘Tis the season—to locate the tarp, the chain saw and gas, the high boots and go trudging off into the woods looking for a tree to cut. (I used to do it with a hand saw; have to admit that a chain saw is much, much easier.) Tie it on top of the van and drive it home.
Once it’s home, you realize the thing is a foot or two taller than the living room—so you cut some more. In nature, trees look much smaller. Then all hands haul it inside and mount it in the tree stand. Add water and a few aspirin (so that it drinks more)—time for pizza.
We’ll keep doing this, no doubt, as long as we can find a friendly farmer willing to part with a nine foot blue spruce for under ten dollars. I know what people pay at lots—and if we get to that point I shall militate strongly for an artificial tree. The farmer where we cut our trees has an artificial one—and so does his daughter next door. For now, still, we have the scent of pine.
Of course the saw and fuel have to be put away in the shed along with the tarp and the rope. My wife puts the lights on and we settle back for our first look at this year’s Christmas tree. It’s a German custom, even a pagan custom, but it’s as much a part of Christmas as Dickens “Christmas Carol” and Tiny Tim.
That story, as everyone remembers, is about keeping Christmas and keeping it well. I admit to seasonal grouchiness at this time of year, but there is a point to talking about keeping Christmas well. Take a look at the Biblical story as it is told in the Gospel of Matthew.
Christ was born into a land where terrorists made the roads impassable at night. Bethlehem was on the border of the DMZ between Rome and Parthia. There was a momentary truce in effect between these enemies who fought one another for seven centuries. When three old Parthians showed up at the gates of Jerusalem, no wonder there was consternation.
First of all, Magi—with priceless gifts--were too important to be left to travel alone through bandit infested desert. It is extremely likely that the Magi had more troops with them than Herod had. They had enough troops to keep Herod’s spy network—the best in the Roman Empire—from following them six miles to see which house the Magi went to.
Herod had experienced Parthians before. Thirty five years before, they had killed his daddy, both of his brothers and come within an inch of catching Herod and his mom. As Jerusalem fell to Parthia, Herod had been forced to run for his life—as had his friend, Marc Anthony.
Now they were back—taunting him, it must have seemed, about some new King of the Jews. He waited until they lifted their screen of cavalry. (Roman legionnaires were far away in Syria and Egypt.) Had the Bethlehemites kept Christmas a bit better, their story would be no doubt happier.
They stuck Mary and Joseph in a barn where the animals were kept. Richer, more prominent, folk had come back to Bethlehem to be counted and pay their taxes. No one in town seems to have paid any attention to them then—or years later when their son was preaching in the area. No one is recorded as having any memory that Jeshua of Nazareth had ever been in Bethlehem.
Herod was, for all practical purposes, on his deathbed at the time the Magi came. Had Bethlehem kept Christmas better, no doubt he would not have lived to kill every baby in town. But he was allowed to live long enough to do mass murder—on those who did not keep Christmas well.
“Peace on Earth to men of good will” the angels sang. Bethlehem showed no good will at all. Joseph and Mary and their son vanished, just before the murders, having been given enough gifts by the Magi to support them in Egypt and then for dad to buy a business back in Nazareth.
Bethlehem leaves us with a promise—of Joy and Peace on Earth. Most celebrants prefer not dwell on the fact that it also leaves us with a terrible warning and threat. Keep Christmas well or something worse than what happened to Scrooge may happen to those who don’t.
And don’t forget to add water to the tree.