According to John McInnes, "joy is one sure sign of gospel simplicity." In this article, he describes how he and a group of friends restored simple joy to the celebration of Christmas, a festival that, for many, has become a time of overcrowded stress.
Joy is one sure sign of gospel simplicity – a simplicity always to be lived by the people of God.
William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, is often quoted as saying of music, "Why should the devil have all the best tunes?" We might likewise ask, "Why should the devil have all the best parties?"
Especially, "why?" at times like Christmas, which are still tokenly Christian celebrations but have been commercialised and often stripped of joy by the Church. After all, what a birthday! God breaking through in a new way to humanity's condition! God himself becoming incarnate in human form!
No wonder the early Christians took over an old pagan festival to celebrate such a birth. And as it was a birth leading to an atoning death, awe as well as joy was an appropriate part of the celebration.
For ages, Christmas had been, for me, an agony – a bitter realisation that, with the pressures of Christmas the way it is, celebrating Christmas the way I thought it should be was nearly impossible. But last Christmas, in the presence of the people in my church with whom I live communally, I felt closer to the sort of celebration that seemed appropriate than ever before.
The day began early, with children in the families opening traditional Christmas stockings containing a few simple gifts – a perfectly ordinary part of the cultural heritage.
Then, at 8am, our community, which at that time only numbered 11 people, joined the local church congregation for the celebration of the Lord's Supper in a traditional way. After that, the community, plus a house guest, had breakfast with various homemade bread rolls served with coffee.
Everyone then moved to another room, dressed up as Mary, Joseph, the Wise Men, and all the other characters, and took part in a tableau mime to a narration read from Scripture. Carols were also sung. Everyone participated – visitors, children, adults. There were no spectators.
The last of the Wise Men presented to the Christ-child an envelope of money, given anonymously but sacrificially by community members. This was later sent to a Christian agency for use in an area where aid was desperately needed.
When the pageant was finished, presents, many of them handmade, were exchanged as a reminder to each other that Christ came into the world for us all. The celebration concluded, three hours after it had begun, with a dance of thanksgiving. Later, one community family shared Christmas dinner with their relatives, while the rest of us invited someone to our meal who otherwise would have had no celebration at all.
Everyone who took part felt deeply moved. The breakfast was simple yet special. What could have been "dressing up with the kids" became a rich entry into the Mary and Joseph story. By giving substantially (not just symbolically) to those in need through a trusted agency, we felt we were living out the message of the Judgment story in Matthew 25: that giving to the poor is giving to Christ himself. After all, Christmas is his birthday.
Christians are to be a simple, celebrating people. Their “parties” are not to be empty rituals or stereotyped formal services. They should be alive, vibrant, probably noisy, and crackling with joy.
If they are not, we might well ask some probing questions about the reality of the life with God that the participants profess. Joy is one sure sign of gospel simplicity – a simplicity always to be lived by the people of God.
This article is a lightly edited extract from "The New Pilgrims," John McInnes, Albatross, 1980, published in Tearfund Magazine (1995) when the Gift Catalogue was first released.
Gifts of good news! Useful Gifts – the original way to buy a goat and other poverty-fighting gifts.
