Hallmark Movies and the Second Advent
You know the formula. It’s Christmas time, and Something Is Wrong. Someone is lonely, or grieving, or under a lot of pressure. Someone, perhaps, has given up on Christmas. Relationships are broken or strained. Financial ruin looms on the horizon. This one event or project needs to be perfect, but problems keep arising. The main characters do their best to solve all of this, but their most earnest efforts and hilarious hijinks are to no avail. They need a miracle.
And just at the right moment, a miracle comes. It could be supernatural intervention in the form of Santa Claus or an angel; or perhaps the more ambiguous “magic of Christmas”; or, quite simply, the power of human love and faith. A secret is revealed. A gift is given. A heart is softened. The weather mysteriously changes. Whatever it takes, somehow, the tide is turned. Wrongs begin to be made right. Relationships are formed and restored. Hurts are healed. Faith is renewed. Not only is peril avoided, but there is clear hope for the future. The event or project is more than perfect; it’s glorious. And if anyone remains an unrepentant jerk, they get their comeuppance with a healthy dose of poetic justice. All the main characters are happy, with the implication that things will only get better from here.
Such is the Hallmark Christmas movie, airing in various iterations from Thanksgiving until about New Year’s Day. Many other non-Hallmark Christmas movies follow the same formula, especially those aimed at kids. Meanwhile, the cynical grown-ups shake their heads and roll their eyes. We know better. That’s not how life works. There’s no Christmas magic that makes everything turn out right just because of the time of year. Things stay wrong. They might stay wrong for years, or even forever. And even if they do start to improve, the process will be long, painful, and messy. It could start and then fail. It could get even worse. And when one thing does work out right, or even if many things do, a lot of other problems will still exist. There is no happily ever after in this world.
Yet.
O Tidings of Comfort and Joy
In the Christian story, there is in fact a happy ending. It takes place at the end of the world, when Jesus comes back to Earth to raise the dead, judge each person’s final outcome, and institute His perfect kingdom. This event is known by several names: the Last Judgment, the Apocalypse, and the Second Advent, among others. There’s some disagreement over the order and timing of it all, but orthodox Christians all agree that Jesus will keep His promise to return.
“Wait a minute,” you say. “Judgment? Apocalypse? How is this a happy ending?!”
Does this sound more like it?
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. (Revelation 21:4)
Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. (Revelation 21:27)
All the bad things are gone. Everything that causes human suffering has been dealt with and cast aside forever. That includes human evil, as the repentant faithful have this promise:
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:23–24)
Those who believe in Christ are made holy — sanctified — so that when He returns, they bring no sin into His kingdom. And the unrepentant jerks who still practice shameful or deceitful things — they are out. No malice, no envy, no power struggles, no bigotry or prejudice, no lying or manipulation. Humanity is the best that it can be. And nature gets in on the action, too.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. (Revelation 21:1)
This new universe is described in several places in terms of prosperity, safety, and love. So no more natural disasters, no more famine or disease, and no more curse against the ground (see Genesis 3:17–19 with Revelation 22:3). Every wrong is righted, every problem solved, and things are only going to get better from there.
Joy to the World
Traditionally, the Advent season is about not only the first coming of Jesus, as a baby in Bethlehem, but also His second coming at the end of the world. The two are closely related, so much so that they’re often seen as a single event from the perspective of the Old Testament prophets, or two parts of a single event in the New Testament epistles. Christ’s first coming is the beginning of His kingdom; His second is the culmination of it. Even in this in-between period, there are already foretastes of the glory to come. There is healing and reconciliation, things that no one would think possible without the power of Christ and His Holy Spirit. They may not happen at Christmas, but miracles do come.
And yet, as the author of Hebrews says, “at present we do not see everything subject to him” (Hebrews 2:8b). Pain and death still rule over most of the world. God’s people suffer just as much as anyone else. People mock us, just as Peter prophesied:
They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” (2 Peter 3:4)
In other words, what good is your faith when you don’t get your happy ending? When all the bad stuff goes on just like it always has?
Perhaps it’s more fitting than we think that Christmas takes place around the winter solstice. The longest night of the year is also the day many cultures celebrate the return of the sun, or the victory of the sun over the forces that would keep it away. But it doesn’t look or feel like the victory of the sun right away. In my home of Minnesota and much of the Northern Hemisphere, the old saying is true that “as the days grow longer, the cold grows stronger.” And yet we know that the sun is coming back. In the same way, though it might not look or feel like Jesus is winning right now, we know (because He promised, and because of the first coming) that the Sun of Righteousness will arise with healing in His rays (Malachi 4:2).
“Joy to the World” expresses this very hope. Though we’re so used to thinking of it as a Christmas song, it’s actually very Advent-focused; as in, the Second Advent. This is clearest in the third verse:
No more let sins and sorrows grow
nor thorns infest the ground;
he comes to make his blessings flow
far as the curse is found.
There’s a tension here, recognized by many theologians as the “already/not-yet” of the kingdom of God. On the one hand, yes, Jesus has already come. He has struck the decisive blow against sin and death in His death and resurrection. His reign is seen in His people, who resist the power of evil and spread blessings everywhere. But on the other hand, sins and sorrows still grow and thorns still infest the ground. The kingdom isn’t fully realized yet, as long as there is evil and pain in the world. And this tension will continue until that day (no one knows which day) when Jesus will come back. Christmas Yet to Come, as you might say.
In Like a Lion
Christmas in the present, then, is a reminder to hold on to hope. Like the faithful Narnians in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we keep repeating to ourselves and to each other:
Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
No wonder the Witch who reigned over their endless winter made sure to outlaw Christmas. And no wonder that the first sign of her magic’s weakening, the first sign of Aslan’s imminent return, was Father Christmas breaking through. Like a movie with a happy ending, or a joyful song, Christmas gives us that feeling that everything is not going to stay wrong forever.
But what about when the Christmas magic fails for us? When the happy ending doesn’t come, and we’re left with Something Wrong on what should be the best day of the year?
Some of us definitely have a hard time singing “Joy to the World” or watching Hallmark movies. There might be tragedy, grief, family divisions, or other causes of pain wrapped up in Christmas. If that’s you, I offer you another song:
Especially the lyrics to the chorus:
It’s always winter but never Christmas
It seems this curse just can’t be lifted
Yet in the midst of all this ice and snow
Our hearts stay warm cause they are filled with hope
No, you don’t have to be bubbling over with glee. And no one should try to make you. But don’t let the curse freeze hope out of your heart. Even Christmas Past contains a promise for the future: just at the right moment, a miracle will come.
(All Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, copyright 1984.)