Virtual, In-Person, or Charlie Brown Christmas Eve?

Is there any more popular term these days than"pivot?" Everyone, it seems, is pivoting away from conventional ways of doing things in order to survive and even thrive. 

Unfortunately the Ontario government's announcement on Monday about the upcoming lock-down has pastors and other religious leaders pirouetting like drunken ballerinas as they try to figure out what Christmas Eve and Day services will look like. There are regions of the province, such as ours, where in-person worship has been happening for months, along with the virtual option. Even though the lock-down doesn't begin until Boxing Day many congregations are choosing to go dark beforehand. This never happened for me through the decades of ministry, thank God. All we had to contend with were straightforward ice storms and blizzards. 

And what about the messages to be preached for this "on-again, off-again" Christmas?  What homily or sermon could possibly seem adequate in the midst of such uncertainty? Does the message written for an in-person gathering translate to the at-home experience.

I like Diana Butler Bass's reminder that perhaps the most famous Christmas sermon ever was virtual, and was first shared more than 50 years ago. She has been watching  the animated Christmas special,  A Charlie Brown Christmas since 1965, As you may know, TV execs were skeptical about a kid's special which featured jazz music an anemic Christmas tree, and a morose little boy. And then there is the 'sermon" delivered by Linus, in the form of a few verses from the gospel of Luke. It was so...Christian, even for 1965,

As Butler Bass thoughtfully puts it: 

My first recollection of hearing Jesus called “Savior” comes from a much more mundane source—A Charlie Brown Christmas, the classic holiday cartoon, first aired on television in 1965. I was six, my little brother four, and my sister a toddler. We gathered around the new color television, turned to CBS, and watched. Poor Charlie Brown! No one remembered the true meaning of Christmas. He was so depressed! At the climax of the show, he cried out in frustration, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?” His friend Linus stepped on stage and recited verses from Luke 2: “And the angel said unto them, Fear not . . . for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior which is Christ the Lord.”

We were planning to head to Trenton United for son Isaac's carefully monitored Christmas Eve service, but it looks as though it won't be happening now. at least not as a physical gathering. We'll stay tuned for the official word, and perhaps we'll tune in to the animated proclamation of Good News, the birth of Christ our Saviour (with a u!)