The thief comes only to steal . . . and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:10
What’s behind all this buying, shopping, wrapping, this business of Christmas trees, ornaments – in a word extravagance during this season of the year? I recall the stress of buying gifts, especially for my boys, shouldering my way through toy departments to the point of exhaustion. Then all the time trying to think what so and so might like – hoping a gift would not disappoint but surprise the recipient. Such a cost in time and energy plus the impact on one’s bank balance!
Charles Dickens treats of this seasonal cult of abundance in “A Christmas Carol” where he describes a London market place at Christmas: The poulterers’ shops were still half open, and the fruiterers’ were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts . . . There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, . . . that people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, . . . Norfolk Biffins, . . . setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, . . . urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner . . . It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound . . . or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful . . . the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight . . . the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar . . . Nor the figs . . . moist and pulpy, or . . . the French plums . . . or that everything was good to eat; but the customers were all so hurried . . . that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, . . . in the best humor possible . . . For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was!
But then, isn’t this what Christmas is all about: abundance, excess, the bounty of God? We hear mention of “the glory of God” throughout the birth story of Jesus. For instance regarding the shepherds near Bethlehem: An angel of the Lord stood over them and the glory of the Lord shone round them. The word glory is our English translation for the Hebrew word kabod (in Greek: doxa). We usually take it to mean splendor – as if to see God would be like looking directly at the sun. But kabod more radically means wealth, weight in the sense of loaded, abundant with wealth, overflowing with good like that market place scene quoted above. It refers to God’s superabundance of power and grace, his extravagance, (possibly symbolized by Santa’s bulging bag of gifts which he has difficulty dragging down our chimneys).
For instance when Jesus changes water into the best of wine to spare the couple at the marriage feast at Cana, the Gospel of John says, This was the first of his signs . . . and manifested his glory (the wealth, the weight of his concern). Indeed the same Gospel says in one of our Christmas readings: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory . . . full of grace and truth (rich in grace and truth). So why not emulate God’s glory, God’s extravagance at Christmas – because God certainly manifested his glory, his abundant being at that moment in history – to the point of exposing and overwhelming the power of Evil that cultivates the stinginess of characters like Scrooge until, upon his conversion on Christmas day, thinking of Bob Cratchit, Scrooge shouts to an errand boy to go buy the prize Turkey at the Poulterer’s and specifically: “Not the little prize Turkey: the big one.”