Merry Christmas 2007

 

Welcome to "Tuesday Mornings"—always a point of encouragement and inspiration for Christians everywhere.

 

This week's epistle is based on the last two lines of Hoffmann's classic fairy-tale, The Nutcracker. In this Christmas-Eve fantasy Hoffmann spoke of "a country where the most wonderful things can be seen if you have the right sort of eyes for it." He was speaking, of course, of a land where fantasy reigned.

 

Christmas is a place where reality reigns, along with love, peace, joy, kindness, and Christ-likeness. Christmas is the time of year that calls for all of us to have "the right sort of eyes" for the story of the birth of Jesus. My prayer for you is that this Christmas will be a time when your vision about things Christmas will be 20/20.  Blessings on you and all of those whom you love—both near and far away.

 

Tom and Madelyn Barnard

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“The Right Sort of Eyes”

Tom Barnard

 

ne of the most famous fairy-tales of all time is the Nutcracker Suite, Opus 71, by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The ballet—consisting of two acts and three scenes—is a musical adaptation of an original story by Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, who preferred the pen name of E.T.A. Hoffmann. Hoffmann was an early-nineteenth-century composer, writer, jurist, and caricaturist. Born in 1776 in East Prussia, Hoffmann had marginal gifts in music and arts, but he expressed his talents in numerous genres—the most successful of which was his story of the Nutcracker. But it did not enjoy success until it was set to music by Tchaikovsky in 1892, seventy years following Hoffman’s death.

 

The original story is a delightful tale that includes fantasy with a good bit of what contemporary theater would call “realism.” The setting is the 24^th of December—Christmas Eve. The primary actors are the children of a Dr. Stahlbaum—Fritz and Clara. A third character—Godfather Drosselmeier—was known for the special hand-made mechanical toys he gave to Fritz and Clara each year on the evening before Christmas Day. The toy that he made for Clara that year was a wooden nutcracker. Clara saw more than a toy nutcracker in her gift. She saw something that was fragile but real and beautiful. That’s how the story begins. What happens next is total fantasy. An army of mice, led by an enormous mouse with seven heads, dances across the room, heading straight for the toy cabinet where Clara had just tucked in her toy nutcracker for the night. And then…

 

Well, I don’t have time to tell the entire story. In fact, I would like to lead you to the final sentences in the story, lines told by the story-teller Hoffmann himself. Still in a fantasy mood, he says, “Years later, Clara left in a golden carriage.” And then come the final words,

 

“She is still the queen of a country where the most wonderful things can be seen,

if you have the right sort of eyes for it.”

 

Hoffman was not a man of faith, but he understood belief when he created the characters in the story.

 

The late theologian Edward John Carnell defined faith as “resting in the sufficiency of the evidences.” He understood that some people have the capacity of seeing things and believing in things that most people disregard as untrue or irrelevant. To many people in the world today, the Story of Christmas falls in the realm of fantasy at best, or myth at worst. But for people of faith, Christmas is the begin-ning of the story of salvation, of eternal life, of miracles, and signs, and wonders, of God’s love.

 

The reason why children are so easily drawn to the Christmas Story is that their hearts have not been beaten down by skepticism, by secularism, by sorrow and pain. Their eyes are open to realism that for many adults is foolishness. To the mind of a child, “the most wonderful things can be seen, if you have the right sort of eyes for it.” In other words, children have no problem with “resting in the sufficiency of the evidences.” Christmas really did happen.

 

Consider these words by Henry Van Dyke:

 

“Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world—stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger then death—and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas.”

 

 May Christmas be a time in which you and your loved ones celebrate the true meaning of Christmas and enjoy the Forever Gift—the gift with a name above all other names: Jesus!