Some people are made for Christmas. It’s like they live their whole year to get to December and there’s nothing that captures the awe and beauty of Christmas more than a Christmas Tree.

That’s not how it works for me. December is so busy, and there’s so much pressure to get things right which means inevitable fails. It’s not that I’m a Grinch, but there’s other stuff going on for me. Most of which I can’t seem to be able to name or disempower. I can relate much more closely to Charlie Brown.

“Christmas is coming, but I’m not happy. I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel. I just don’t understand Christmas I guess. I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that but I’m just not happy. I always end up feeling depressed.” (Charlie Brown in A Charlie Brown Christmas 1965)

We’ll come back to Charlie in a minute but our job today is to look at the Christmas Tree. Us humans have been putting green trees and branches in our homes for Millenia and for many reasons. I presume the main reason being that they look great. Both the Romans and Egyptians have carvings and paintings of trees in homes. The Christmas tree doesn’t really get recorded much until Martin Luther in the 1500’s.

Eight years ago we celebrated the 500th anniversary of the reformation, Martin Luther’s passionate quest to return scripture to the central place of authority in the life of the church (Sola Scriptura), that salvation is by grace alone (Sola Gratia) through faith alone (Sola Fide) and all because of the finished work of Christ alone on the cross (Solus Christus).

It turns out, Luther was a big Christmas lover as well. We have some lyrics of songs he wrote 'From Heaven Above to Earth I Come': "From heaven above to earth I come / To bear good news to every home / Glad tidings of great joy I bring / Whereof I now will say and sing / To you this night is born a child / Of Mary, chosen virgin mild / This little child, of lowly birth / Shall be the joy of all the earth."

Luther wanted to make Christmas more prominent in the social and religious calendar.

Legend says he was out walking one bleak mid-winter night (the sun sets at 4pm). When he saw the stars shining through the trees, and wanted his family to see the beauty he felt God had created. So he cut a tree, brought it inside, and lit candles on its branches to illustrate the glory of Christ, the Light of the world.

Here is a picture of Luther just after his eyebrows started growing back after putting his house-fire out (I’m joking).

In 1800, Queen Charlotte—the German wife of King George III brought the custom to Britain. She hosted a Christmas party featuring a decorated tree.

In around the 1830’s, German (or Switz) immigrants carried the tradition to America.

Then, in 1848, a drawing was published of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert standing around their Christmas tree with their children. Public enthusiasm exploded. What the royal family loved, the public embraced.

So the Christmas tree only very loosely links as an object of Christian worship.

And we’re still doing it. Here’s a video released from the White House this week. You’ll see the same kind of theme – the aristocracy or ruler class, or royalty creating something very expensively beautiful and creating wonder.
Here’s a photo of Windsor Castle this year as well.

I’m not showing this for any political reasons, but just want you to notice the feelings going off within you as you watch it.

OK. Let’s jump back to Charlie and Linus.

‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’, created by Charles Shultz, produced by Bill Milindez with music by Vince Galdi) was released in 1965 and took the TV-watching world by storm. Here are a couple of interesting facts:

* Coca-Cola funded: Coca-Cola wanted to further its campaign on Christmas, and so asked a successful producer, Bill Mendelson, if he had something he was working on as they would fund it. 6 Months, $76k and no mistakes was Coca-Cola’s requirement. If you watch the cartoon you’ll see Coca-Cola red everywhere. The drink stall, the star on top of the tree… almost in every scene.

* First animation of Charlie Brown: Apart from a little-known car advert, this is the first time anyone had animated the 15-year successful newspaper comic of Charlie Brown.

* Needs a Laugh Track: CBS executives insisted that Charlie Brown needed a laugh track. They argued that silence made scenes feel empty. That children wouldn’t get the humour, that TV needed to tell people when to laugh. Charles Schultz stared at them, calm and unmoving, and said. “Let the audience feel what they feel”. When the executives pushed again, he didn’t argue. He simply stood up and walked out. Without forced laughter, Charlie Brown’s world breathed. The pauses, the awkwardness, the loneliness, the sudden moments of warmth. Silence became part of the storytelling.

* Jazz won’t suit it (jazz music by Vince Galdi): Schultz wasn’t a jazz fan, feeling it was too modern and too grown up for Charlie Brown’s quiet world, but Producer Bill Melindez believed in Vince Galdi to create something warm and human which still remains a major soundtrack to Christmas today.

* The authenticity of real children: This cartoon used real children as voice actors, adding to its authenticity.

* On half of America’s TV’s: When it came out in America, 15 million TV’s showed it live. Half the TV’s in America.

Unfortunately, consumerism gets the best of snoopy the dog. Charlie has been advised by the psychiatrist Lucy at the cost of 25c that he needs purpose, so she makes him director of their Christmas play for which they require a Christmas tree. We get to watch Charlie and Linus choose it.

The 1960’s were full of aluminium and space-aged glitz. However, within a couple years of this cartoon the aluminium Christmas tree fad ground to a halt.

Christmas Trees and the environment:

There are 25-30 million Real Christmas Trees sold in the U.S. every year with 350 million currently growing on 350,000 acres (8 times the size of Wellington Park, or planting out every bit of farmland south of Bothwell in Tasmania).

Over 100,000 people are employed in the American Christmas Tree industry.

It takes between 6 and 15 years to grow a tree of typical height (6 – 7 feet).
Eighty percent (80%) of artificial trees worldwide are manufactured in China.

When Patrick, now known as the Irish Saint, arrived to bring the love, joy, peace and knowledge of Christ into a dark, superstitious and oppressed people, he said, “You worship this large Oak trees, but let me introduce you to the one who made the tree.” “You worship the sun in all its splendour and life-giving glory, but let me introduce you to the one who made the sun”.
I think similarly, our task is to look beyond the Christmas tree and see the son. The creator of the cosmos. The one who spoke all into being.

Searching for the Perfect Tree

Many of us know the ritual:
The family stands in the cold, walking up and down aisles of trees.
“This one is the wrong shape.”
“That one has a bare patch.”
“This one is perfect—unless we find a better one.”

We look for the tree with perfect symmetry, perfect fullness, perfect height…
Yet the perfect Christmas tree is illusive. Even the best one has quirks and imperfections.

As a musician I am also starting to understand what women have been saying about air-brushed models in magazines for decades. For the first time this year, with AI generated music I can now say, ‘I can’t compete anymore’. I can’t compete with perfection and what is not made of human origins.

It reminds me a bit of the upright piano sitting over there. Today, we have digital pianos—perfectly tuned, always stable, never out of key. They solve so many problems! And yet… something is missing. The upright piano, with its little rattles and slightly uneven tones, has character. Those tiny imperfections are what make it beautiful.

I’m reminded of Renata’s exhibit last year, full of pieces that celebrated imperfection—the textures, the asymmetry, the proof that something had been shaped, handled, loved.

Unfortunately I can’t create a perfect Christmas. Even if I had the cash to lay it all out, what I create would still be a façade that attempts to hide normal life. For me, this is my 20th Christmas without my mum. For a couple of decades I haven’t been able to celebrate it together with my extended family in any way, let alone the picture postcard ideal of Christmas, and now, this Christmas I am unable to have my immediate family together in one place and we’re celebrating Christmas with broken hearts. The perfect Christmas has illuded me. So what are we to do with all this brokenness.

I think this is where God’s perfect plan doesn’t look perfect at all. He lands his son in a dirty old cave with an animal trough for a manger, a very young inexperienced mother, no medical help to speak of and a step-father who has only just hung on by the skin of his teeth.

There is the beautifully imperfect picture of Christ’s birth. Humanly speaking, the son of God would have fit so much more idyllically into the White House Christmas. Make a beautiful birthing space in amongst all the beauty, pomp and expensively attained perfection and announce the birth of Christ from a magically arranged balcony. However, that’s not how God does it.

When CBS saw what was going to be released for ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’, they were shocked to see that 10% of the cartoon was to be a scripture reading and they demanded that the reading be removed. Religious content during prime-time was far too risky. But Shultz, a World War II veteran and a Sunday School teacher of his Pietist and Wesleyan church said that this cartoon required depth and soul, and the passage from Luke gave it that. He then stood up and walked out of the meeting.

Let’s see what Linus says is the true meaning of Christmas.

The message of the angels is the bit to listen to in Luke 2:

The Glory of the Lord shone all around them. 10“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.”

So today I invite you to lift your eyes beyond the decorations of Christmas, beyond our traditions, beyond our search for perfection…to the Creator of the cosmos who loves you beyond measure and came to earth so that you might be saved.

Questions:
1. What emotions does Christmas usually stir in you - joy, stress, nostalgia, or something else? Why do you think that is?

2. Charlie Brown said, “I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel.” Do you ever feel pressure to feel a certain way during Christmas? How do you handle that?

3. Why do you think the Christmas tree became such a powerful symbol of the season, even though it’s only loosely connected to Christian worship?

4. When you see extravagant Christmas displays (like Windsor Castle or the White House), what feelings rise up in you—wonder, envy, joy, or something else?

5. What traditions help you personally connect with the meaning of Christmas beyond the decorations and icons?

6. How can we as a church help others look beyond the tree and rediscover the deeper message of Christmas this year?