Snippet

Christmas culture

Culture

Film & TV

27 December 2024

2 min read

Home Alone reminds me of another kid

Home for the holidays hints at much, much more.

Jamie Mulvaney

Jamie is Associate Minister at Holy Trinity Clapham, London.

A child lies under a bed, resting his chin on his hands, contemplating.

Is he just a very naughty boy? That's certainly the impression we get – the only impression – of Jesus in between infancy and adulthood in the Bible. Precious little is written about the precocious boy Jesus beyond his birth (shepherds, magi, lobsters and all). But there are similarities with Kevin McAllister from Home Alone with Luke's account of Jesus in the temple at twelve years' old.

Admittedly, there were no sticky bandits, nor John Williams soundtrack, but spare a thought for Jesus' parents leaving their son behind at a time of festival. When returning from Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover, as they did every year, they realise they have misplaced the Messiah. Oops! Imagine Mary screaming her son's name, and the inconvenient three-day trek to work out where he was. They eventually find him in the temple, and slightly exasperated they ask him why he was there. He was obedient to them (worth mentioning) and left for home.

But his answer to that question reveals Jesus' understanding of home, when the idea of being 'home for the holidays' can be a contested one for us. He replied, 'Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house', or 'about my Father's business.' This is really strong. Quite the chutzpah. Not just that he’s twelve years old speaking to his parents, but nobody would refer to God as ‘my Father’. It is out of this place, or more appropriately this relationship, where Jesus would '[grow] in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.’

Home is where we can be ourselves, but also let our guard down, ask questions, and have the confidence to go out into the world, secure in who we are. And with this being the only insight of a growing Jesus, learning, studying, asking questions, perhaps there's also insight for how we can grow as people, what we understand home to be, and how we might relate to God. In many ways Jesus' adult life would be nomadic, but his sense of home wasn't about geography but a relationship with his Father where he could be free to be inquisitive.

Unlike Macaulay Culkin, our lasting impression of Jesus might not be as a boy. And the festival that bears his own name has become a time to engage with our roots, and to look to the future. But, perhaps even more than we'd realise, the boy Jesus hints to us that there's no place like home for the holidays.

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Snippet

Belief

Christmas culture

Creed

26 December 2024

3 min read

My Boxing Day anti-climax

What if the most wonderful time has come and gone, and not much has changed?

Jonathan Torrance

Jonathan is a priest and theologian who researches theology and comedy.

A grump cat wears a red Christmas hat, sitting amongst Christmas decorations.

Amin Alizadeh on Unsplash.

Can I begin by sharing an embarrassing secret?

Every year I find Christmas… a disappointment.

This is because it turns out that I’m still basically a 10-year-old, and I still, in the core of my being, believe that the presents under the tree are going to be the key to the lasting happiness I seek.

And, not only that, but I am also convinced that somehow all the candles, and the nostalgia, and the Christmas specials of Call the Midwife, will add up to some glorious, mulled wine inspired transcendence.

Now I know all this is nonsense.

I know that low expectations are the key to enjoying family holidays; that the presents are tokens of love, and sometimes obligation, which aren’t supposed to complete me.

And yet, on Boxing Day there is always this sensation of anti-climax.

The presents have been opened, and the people I love have done their best, and sometimes given me truly creative and thoughtful presents, but none of them are the specific thing I secretly craved.

And the carols were stunning, and candlelight does make everything and everyone beautiful, and I cried at Call the Midwife, but I’m still me, with all my ambivalence and endless need and childish self-regard.

The most wonderful time of the year has come and gone, and not much has changed.

Which gets me thinking about that first Christmas, and how anti-climactic, in some ways, that was too.

Christians believe that the birth of this particular baby in that particular stable, was a key turning point in all history, as God entered the world in human form, coming to rescue his people and restore humanity.

But in the short term, how much actually changed?

Mary and Joseph still faced the overwhelming task of keeping a new-born alive, in a stable far from home.

The shepherds and the wise men seem to have wondered back to their respective lives, and are never heard from again.

And evil still rages unchecked. The story doesn’t make it into many Nativity plays (strangely enough) but the next episode in the narrative is truly horrific – Herod, the paranoid ruler massacring all the babies in Bethlehem in a futile attempt to eliminate the new-born king.

The light shineth in darkness, as we hear in the stunning final reading of Carol services, but the darkness comprehended it not.

Christmas came and went, and the world kept turning.

Christian faith always has to contend with this reality – that not much may change. And so for me there is actually hope in the recognition that the bible includes quite a lot of reality – quite a lot of disappointment, and non-transformation, and outright evil – in its telling of the entrance of God into the world.

And yet, and yet. I also believe that that baby, that birth, that Christmas, really did sow concrete seeds of change into the midst of the darkness and disappointment.

The darkness may not have comprehended the light, but neither could it overcome it.

And somehow, the light shines still, even amidst the piles of wrapping paper and washing up and reminders of human failure that fill our post-Christmas days.

Happy boxing day!