Journeying Towards and Beyond Christmas

Stephen Kuntz

Perhaps this Christmas memory is so strong because it took place in a distant land that knows little of the rush and marketing of our usual Christmas celebrations. Or because it was so different from all the other Christmas seasons I have had. Or maybe because it was more like Christmas was meant to be: the unexpected, the unusual, the unacceptable, the unforgettable. Isn't that what Christmas should be about--stretching, seeking, journeying, pushing life a little further than we do all year? Didn't the shepherds leave their flocks to look at a Child? Didn't the Magi vacate their libraries to journey across the desert? Didn't the angels withdraw from the most perfect of places to give a message to the cold, flawed earth?

It was Christmas, 1987, and I was in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China as an English teacher. I had been teaching the students Christmas carols during the month of December. One evening a few days before Christmas, another foreign teacher and I decided we would entertain our students with some Christmas carols. Our students were huddled in cold classrooms diligently studying by candlelight for their upcoming exams. We stood at the door of the first classroom and began to sing. Two by two, they lifted their heads, left their desks and joined us in singing. Students from nearby classrooms also heard and left their cubicles to listen to this strange sound.

The spontaneous choir formed slowly as we roamed from classroom to classroom. Then, someone suggested we go to the library, and, without consultation, we were soon parading across the campus, a hundred Chinese students led by a white-faced, big-nosed, guitar-clutching foreigner.

We converged upon the library and filed through the single door to the horror of the old doorkeeper, whose job it was to watch the comings and goings and report anything out of the ordinary. This certainly wasn't ordinary! He made a meagre and futile attempt at halting the surge of students. His look betrayed the fear that we were up to some subversive activity.

The eyes and voices of the students came alive as we sang. A few knew all the words, some the melody; others knew neither word nor melody, but sang in full voice. The multitude of students quietly studying didn't seem to be bothered by this abrupt halt to their solitude. Most didn't understand the words, but the looks on our faces spoke eloquently of joy, spontaneity, life. We serenaded the students and left--down the stairs, past the still disbelieving guard and out into the night.

The air seemed colder now, shocking us back into reality. The students spoke more quietly. Their bodies grew stiff. Life returned to normal. Two by two, they disappeared into the dark in search of their candle-lit, crowded dormitory rooms.

Spontaneous outbreaks of singing and joy seldom disturbed the dull routine and rote conformity during my time in China, but this night was different. This time, the students had conquered their fear and embraced life. For a time, the peace and joy of Christmas had enveloped them, and they had lived differently, dangerously, freely.

I look back now and wonder if that same naive joy, laughter and singing brought some of them to Tiananmen Square a few years later. Unlike the gatekeeper at the library, the keepers of Tiananmen would not be overcome. Not that time anyway.

I often think about my Chinese students, especially during the Christmas season. I wonder if they softly sing "Silent Night" to their sleeping children? Are they tempted to chorus "Angels We Have Heard on High" in the forbidden, quiet places of their lives? I wonder if they can ever be the same because they once pushed life a little and journeyed beyond the customary. Could the shepherds, magi and angels ever look at a star, a child or the earth in the same temporal, profane way?

As we celebrate Christmas for the 15th, 20th or 30th time, I wonder whether we are still as amazed as the shepherds, magi and angels. Are we captivated and absorbed in this event, overpowered by its wonder? Or do we put gatekeepers around our hearts, minds and spirits to ensure normalcy and limit the spirit of Christmas, the freedom and joy of Christ.

Like the shepherds, we will have to go back to our jobs; like the Magi, we must return to our country; and, like the angels, we cannot eternally gaze at the Christ Child. We cannot stay here at this birth in a manger, with a king rearranging his priorities to kill a child.

But, unlike the shepherds, magi and angels, we get an annual opportunity to gaze at Christmas and perhaps notice something we missed the first 15 or 30 times: To see the ambiguous tear in Mary's eye or the uneasiness on Joseph's face, to hear the hatred in Herod's words, to determine the key the angels sang in. To maybe not get it exactly right, but at least to not keep remembering it wrongly, observing it routinely, celebrating it unfairly. So that, when we return to whatever it is we must return to--a job, study or maybe just January--we are a little further along in our journey towards the Christ.

Stephen Kuntz is associate pastor of Lendrum MB Church in Edmonton.

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