Amos 5:21, 23-24
It’s the first CD I put in the player every year on the day after Thanksgiving. The Andy Williams Christmas Album from back in the 1960s. The one I grew up listening to, the one my mom played on the record player in our living room. And the song that I listen for that makes it Christmas again? “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” And I sing along with him: “It’s the most wonderful time of the year, with the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you ‘Be of good cheer.’ It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s the hap-happiest season of all, with those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings when friends come to call. It’s the hap-happiest season of all.”
But last year it was really hard to sing, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” I wanted to sing it. In fact, I started playing Christmas music at the beginning of November, not even waiting until after Thanksgiving. My Christmas tree was up and decorated in my office the first week of November. The year of COVID was so hard and depressing that I just needed something to cheer me up, some lights, some carols, some joy. But it was really hard to muster up the feelings.
More often than not, what I was hearing in my heart were the words to another song. It is also a song that is heard at Christmas, on a TV special that also came about in the early 60s, when I was just a little girl. “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch, you really are a heel. You’re as cuddly as a cactus, you’re as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch. You’re a bad banana with a greasy black peel. You’re a monster, Mr. Grinch. Your heart’s an empty hole, your brain is full of spiders, you’ve got garlic in your soul, Mr. Grinch. I wouldn’t touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole. You’re a vile one, Mr. Grinch, you have termites in your smile. You have all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile, Mr. Grinch. Given the choice between the two of you I’d take the seasick crocodile. You’re a foul one, Mr. Grinch. You’re a nasty, wasty skunk. Your heart is full of unwashed socks, your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Grinch. The three words that best describe you are, and I quote: ‘Stink. Stank. Stunk.’”
And, truth be told, sometimes I not only heard the song about the Grinch, I kind of felt Grinchy myself. And to be quite honest, sometimes this year that Grinchy feeling has reared its ugly head, too. And I have come to realize that for many people, this holiday season is not the most wonderful time of the year that it might have been in years past. For over 350,000 Americans, there is a newly empty chair – or more than one – at the table this year due to losing a loved one to COVID. And there are other empty chairs that belonged to loved ones lost to other causes. For others, life has changed significantly due to a lost job or a change in jobs. For still others, there is less income, so there will be less gift-giving this year, which will be disappointing to children. Maybe some people are just depressed and they don’t even know why.
In the story of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, we are told that the Grinch hated Christmas. He didn’t just dislike it, he didn’t just not think it was the most wonderful time of the year, he actively and passionately hated it. We aren’t told why he hated it; we are just told that he hated Christmas. As a child, I know that I was so shocked that anyone could hate Christmas! It was inconceivable to me. But it was true for the Grinch. He hated everything that he knew about Christmas, as he observed the way the Whos celebrated it. As Matt Rawle puts it in The Heart That Grew Three Sizes, the Grinch snarled at their stockings and growled at their greenery, and he only heard noise when they sang their songs.
The Grinch hated Christmas so much, that he managed somehow to take something beautiful and make it ugly. Rawle writes, “Christmas is beautiful. Christmas is profound … but the Grinch’s hate for the Whos meant that the only solution that would satisfy his small heart would be to take what they love, use it as a weapon, and forever mar their memory.” Have you ever known anyone like that, someone who could take something as beautiful as Christmas and ruin it? I have certainly heard of people like that, who somehow take delight in spoiling Christmas for those around them. Their own meanness and hatred for the spirit of Christmas provokes them to make sure that no one around them can enjoy it, and they complain or make unkind remarks or start arguments or otherwise make nuisances of themselves. It is really a sad thing for the people around them, but also a sad thing to be that miserable.
The Grinch thought he had a plan to put a stop to Christmas, a perfect plan to keep Christmas from happening. He would steal the Whos’ gifts and trees and food for the feast. Then on Christmas morning, instead of their joyful singing, he would hear weeping and wailing. And so he snuck into Whoville, and went from house to house, stripping them bare of every decoration, gift, and canned good. He loaded them up on his sleigh and removed them up the mountain. There he was ready to push them over the edge to destroy them all when he heard a sound coming from Whoville as the sun rose. But it wasn’t the sound he was expecting. Instead of weeping and wailing, the Grinch heard singing. The Whos were singing their Christmas song. Even though they had nothing with which to celebrate, they still sang with joy in their hearts and voices. And so the Grinch’s expectations were shattered.
We can have our expectations go unmet at Christmas sometimes, too. Maybe every year we think to ourselves, “This will be the best Christmas ever.” But every year we are disappointed. People aren’t as excited about their gifts as we hoped they would be. Time with family isn’t as we planned it to be. Things don’t go as we want them to go. And we end up dissatisfied. What are your expectations for this holiday season? Are you setting your expectations too high, maybe because things were so less than perfect last year? I know many of us weren’t able to be with family at all last Christmas. What might happen if your expectations are not met this year? Will you get all Grinchy about it? Will you become bitter or angry? Or will you be able to allow your heart to grow another size bigger?
This first Sunday of Advent is the Sunday of peace. The Grinch was not someone who seemed to enjoy much peace. He was too busy hating and plotting and scheming. The truth is, peace has to begin in your own heart. You have to make peace with yourself before you can be at peace with anyone else. The Grinch was clearly not finding any inner peace. He was too busy worrying about what the Whos were doing and not doing and how it affected him. When you can love yourself, and have an inner peace, then you can love others and be at peace with them.
This year Christmas may not seem like the most wonderful time of the year. But Advent is the time to prepare ourselves to celebrate it with joy in our hearts. It’s not really about jingle belling and everyone telling you to be of good cheer; it’s not about the decorations and the gifts and the toys. Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. It’s about God’s gift of love to the world. When we understand that, and realize the miracle of it, then we are able to celebrate it with the joy that it creates in our hearts. And we are able to feel the peace of God, which passes all understanding.
