Not a Reindeer Story

I well remember the Christmas concerts of my youth. Each year, Mrs. Rogers was expected to put on a concert that would entertain the whole community. We pretty much ceased to do any real schoolwork from about mid-October until Christmas in the little one-room schoolhouse. Come the night of the concert, all of us little thespians from grades one to seven, each playing several different parts in the elaborate play, gathered an hour early at the school to get costumed. The community hall would fill up. We would peek through the bedsheet curtains in great excitement. The lights would be dimmed. And then it would start.

Then in a flash it was over, or at least it seemed like that. Around the time that the post-performance euphoria was kicking in, Santa Claus would suddenly burst in the heavy community hall doors, bellowing at the top of his lungs in a rich bass voice that sounded a lot like Grandpa’s: “Ho ho ho! Are there any good little boys and girls in here?”

Of course we were all very good little boys and girls; at least that night we were—even my friend Ricky. Santa would stomp up to the huge Christmas tree at the front of the hall. Down from his back came a great humungous sack with a great big whack. And just when Santa was about to dig into it, and we were at the height of shivering expectation, suddenly the door to the hall would burst open again. The head and neck of a humongous reindeer would burst into the hall. It looked a lot like Ernie Shaw’s trophy six-point mule deer buck, but it had bright red lights flashing in each nostril of its nose. Icy steam was wafting in through the door and there was a great uproar of stomping hooves, shaking horns and the raunchiest rude reindeer racket you have ever heard. Kids would be screaming in horror and delight; the littlest diving under the benches that their mothers sat on.

And suddenly Santa Claus would turn around from diving into his sack of toys and bellow at the top of his lungs: “Get outta here right now Rudolph, before you mess the floor.” Rudolph would back out and the heavy door would slam shut. Santa would turn around and dive into his sack once again. And again the door would burst open. The reindeer would barge in again, just up to its shoulders mind you, and the whole performance would repeat itself, three or four times.

Suddenly Santa would shoulder his heavy sack again, turn and go charging out the door hollering at Rudolph. We would all let out screams of disappointment. Santa was leaving without giving us any toys. But after a bit he would return, apparently only having left to tie Rudolph to the hitching post.

Santa would apologize and slowly and thoughtfully lay his sack down again. We would all be staring at the sack as Santa would pull up a chair and slowly say, “Have I ever told you about old Rudolph?” And before we could all say “yes” to try and get the jolly fat man to get on with the presents before another reindeer interruption, Santa would burst into the song that told Rudolph’s story. In a rich bass voice he would sing the whole song: “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose …”

Then Santa handed out the presents, and that was about it. But there was something else going on. Deep in the inmost part of my being, I was appropriating the reindeer story as the Christmas story. And so, when it came time for me to hear the real Christmas story, I simply laid it overtop of the reindeer story. I became a believer in Christ with what Craig Larson calls the “Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Reindeer syndrome.” Larson writes in Pastoral Grit: “There have been periods in my life when I have fallen prey to the Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Reindeer syndrome. In the reindeer pecking order, Rudolph was a nobody. Then came that foggy Christmas Eve, when Rudolph had an ability that others valued—a nose that glowed in the dark. After he saved Christmas, the song says, ‘Then all the reindeer loved him …’ I thought that if ‘my nose glowed in the dark,’ I would be accepted and loved. This mentality seems to be driven by the real world. The world revolves around performance: do what others value to earn money and pay the bills; express love to family and friends to have healthy relationships … that assumption has even affected my relationship with God.”

If I am bone honest, I still wrestle with the Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Reindeer syndrome. But here’s the thing. The Christmas story, the true Christmas story, is not a reindeer story. The true Christmas story is all about the birth of the Son of God, by a virgin. And its whole point is that this baby comes as the Saviour of God for the world, for you, for me. And whether or not our nose glows in the dark has nothing to do with it. It’s not about my performance, or your performance, pleasing God or humanity. In fact, the most amazing thing about the baby born in a manger is what the angel Gabriel tells everyone, including the young betrothed pregnant mother, the confused dad with his own catalogue of sins, and the shocked shepherds, perhaps the lowest of society: “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11).

The true Christmas story is not a reindeer story. It is not a story about those who perform well, with noses glowing, getting loved and accepted and forgiven by God. It’s about those whose noses are caked in the muck and the guck of sin; it’s about sinners getting loved and accepted and forgiven by God. That is what salvation means; that’s what Christmas celebrates; that’s what the Christ child gives to you and me as his gift. The apostle Paul, whose catalogue of past sins included brutal religious persecutions and complicity in murder, would meet this saving Christ and accept his salvation and be radically changed by it. Later he would write: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from ourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).