I love the inclusiveness of Christmas.

Every year we hear more complaints about the Christmas season. It’s too: long, commercial, secular, expensive, meaningless, confusing, tiring, sentimental, and “it’s not like the Christmases I remember”. But, above it all, there rises one perennial complaint, “Jesus is being excluded”.

Now, I don’t want to be difficult, but I’ve tried to pay particular attention this year, and I did hear Jesus carols in the mall, lots of them. And I saw manger scenes in public places, and got wished “Merry Christmas” in stores. I don’t know who started this thing about Jesus being left out of the celebration, but it isn’t happening where I live.

Of course, I did see and hear lots of things that have little to do with Jesus. But I guess I’m just more accepting than I used to be, and those things don’t bother me. I mean, let’s be realistic. When a red-nosed, mutant, rangifer tarandus becomes the leader of the team that pulls a flying sleigh someone’s gotta write a song about it. And, when some alien power commandeers a snowman and leads a pack of preadolescent children on a rampage through the inner-city, surely it rates more than a one-off in the National Enquirer.

You know what I really think is happening here? I think, when we complain about Jesus being left out, we’re really complaining about too many others being included. There’s something in us, particularly in us religious folk, that doesn’t want reindeer, snowmen, Santa, trees, coloured lights, turkeys, and particularly partying pagans to spoil our celebration. We just don’t want to share. We want Jesus all to ourselves. And this is because there’s something in us that doesn’t quite get it.

This Jesus who came to Bethlehem and started the whole thing has no desire to be exclusive. He invited dirty old shepherds and pagan astrologers to the party. And I think he delights to see snowmen, reindeer and Santa (even with a Coke bottle in hand) joining the parade. And I think we should know this since the very last thing he did before he left us was to tell us to go everywhere in the world and extend the invitation to everyone. (Matt 28:19-20)

In the classic movie version of A Christmas Carol, when Scrooge says, “An ant is what it is; and a grasshopper is what it is; and Christmas is a humbug”, he was so close. The truth is, Christmas, like an ant and a grasshopper, is what it is. Which is to say, it’s bigger than Scrooge and bigger than we are, it’s not our party, we are invited guests, and it’s not for us to say who gets to come. Christmas is radically inclusive. It must be, it included me.

A few years ago Edmonton’s Christmas baby – I didn’t even know there was such a thing – was born to a Moslem patient, of a Moslem doctor, in the practice where my wife works. Everyone, including the doctor and patient, thought this was wonderfully ironic. But the fact that everyone thought it was ironic was really the only ironic thing about it. The very first Christmas baby was Jewish.