You need involvement

The Gospel according to Charlie Brown.

You need involvement.

This is Lucy’s advice to Charlie Brown when he admits to feeling Blue™️ during Christmastime. “I know I should be happy,” he says, “but I’m not.”

You need involvement. How would you like to be the director of our Christmas play?

Charlie accepts.

As soon as he joins the cast on stage, he begins bossing people around, naturally: “One of the first things to ensure a good performance—pay strict attention to the director!” But no one is paying attention to him. They’re all goofing off, dancing to Vince Guaraldi. He tries again, but to no avail.

Just dancing, dancing, dancing.

Defeated, Charlie and Linus go search for a Christmas tree while Lucy takes charge. Amid a stand of ugly, artificial tree-shaped objects, they discover a little wilting evergreen. “Gee!” exclaims Linus, “do they still make wooden Christmas trees?” Charlie feels drawn to the pathetic tree—”I think it needs me,” he says—and carries it back to rehearsal.

Unfortunately, his friends only laugh when they see it, mocking his selection with a volley of savage adolescent insults:

Boy, are you stupid, Charlie Brown!

What kind of a tree is that?

I told you he’d goof it up!

You’re hopeless, Charlie Brown, completely hopeless!

At this point, Charlie slumps back into his depression—and desperation:

“ISN’T THERE ANYONE WHO KNOWS WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ALL ABOUT?”

Here comes the most memorable scene of the film. Linus—little thumb-sucking Linus—takes center stage and recites a passage from the Gospel of Luke about Christ’s nativity:

Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

This proclamation inspires Charlie Brown to stick with his humble tree, though not for long. It is ultimately his friends who see it through, dressing the tree with ornaments and inviting Charlie Brown to join in “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” which he does. Charlie Brown joins the dance.

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Until this Advent, I had not watched A Charlie Brown Christmas for probably 20 years. I was struck by the depth of its seemingly simple message. At first, Charlie Brown thinks becoming the center of attention—the director of a play—will cure his holiday depression. By the end, however, he learns that true “involvement” consists not in calling the shots but in service and song.

If you will forgive some theologizing, the film reminds us that Christ’s (humble) incarnation is the ground of our work and worship. God’s involvement in the world enables both our incorporation into Christ and our subsequent involvement in the life of the world, down to the last wilting evergreen at the tree farm. Or, we love because he first loved us.

To empty ourselves of our false divinity, to deny ourselves, to give up being the center of the world in imagination, to discern that all points in the world are equally centers and that the true center is outside the world, this is to consent to the rule of mechanical necessity in matter and of free choice at the center of each soul. Such consent is love. The face of this love, which is turned toward thinking persons, is the love of our neighbor.
—Simone Weil

Today is my 33rd birthday. I had planned to write a piece about making grand, Christlike sacrifices, since Christ is said to have been crucified at 33. But today is also Epiphany, and I am still reflecting on the manger. Epiphany commemorates Christ’s manifestation to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi. Like Charlie Brown, they arrive late to the party, so to speak, but when they do, they know what to do. They worship.

You want to feel happy; to garner attention, lovers, and praise; to justify your little existence. You want to build God a temple, but God says, I do not need your temple.

God says: Dance.

It is because of His humanity and His incarnation that Christ becomes sweet to us, and through Him God becomes sweet to us. Let us therefore begin to ascend step by step from Christ’s crying in His swaddling clothes up to His Passion. Then we shall easily know God. I am saying this so that you do not begin to contemplate God from the top, but start with the weak elements. We should busy ourselves completely with treating, knowing, and considering this man. Then you will know that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
—Martin Luther