[based on an article "Just
Drop the Blanket: The Moment You Never Noticed in A
Charlie Brown Christmas" by Jason Soroski]
How was 2017 for you? Was it a good
year or a challenging year? Did some hopes not pan
out? . . . needed healing? . . . occupational
advancements? . . . personal reconciliations? Did
disappointment knock at your door? That happens more
often then we want to admit.
The problem with the Christmas story is not that it
is filled with bad people, but that good people were
just too preoccupied to discover the real meaning.
The inn keeper was preoccupied with business. The
religious leaders were preoccupied by being
religious. The towns people were too preoccupied to
notice a new star. But, not everyone missed it. The
shepherds and the wise men all received more.
During the first days of December, the Emmy and the
Peabody Award-winning
animated film, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” aired on
national primetime television for the 52nd time. It
aired the first time way back in 1965. I hate to
admit it, but I was alive back then. It seems like a
long time ago but I pretty much remember watching “A
Charlie Brown Christmas” just about every year
since. In a world where the latest
greatest technology is outdated in a matter of
months, and popular trends come and go in a matter
of days, 52 years of anything becomes quite
meaningful.
I’ve always been a huge fan Charlie Brown and
especially this Christmas special. I love that the
real story of Christmas is within the film and I
love that Luke 2:8–14 is actually quoted. We just
don’t hear scripture very often on national
television any more. Combine all that with a cartoon
format and I am hooked!
Through the years, countless schools, theaters and
pageants have performed a version of the Charlie
Brown Christmas story and I’ve seen most of them.
But this year, something different jumped out at me.
I never noticed it before, but now I can’t stop
thinking about it. Right in the middle of speaking,
Linus drops his blanket. . . .
|
Charlie Brown is best known for his
yellow striped shirt and Lucy is well recognized in
a blue dress, but Linus is most associated with his
ever-present, increasingly tattered, security
blanket. Throughout the story, Peanuts, Snoopy,
Sally and especially Lucy all work to no avail to
separate Linus from his blanket. And even though his
security blanket remains a major source of ridicule
for the lad, Linus simply refuses to give it up.
Until this moment when he simply drops it.
In that moment, in front of the
entire world, just as Linus shares what “Christmas
is all about,”he drops his security blanket, and I
am now convinced that this is intentional. Just as
he utters the words “fear not,” he lets go of the
one thing he’s constantly been grasping.
Looking at it now—knowing that Charles Schulz was an
open follower of Jesus—it’s all pretty clear as to
what Mr. Schulz was doing. And it’s so simple; it’s
brilliant.
Embracing the birth of Jesus can separate us from
our fears. The birth of Jesus frees us from the
habits we are unable (or unwilling) to break
ourselves. The birth of Jesus allows us to simply
drop our false security we have been grasping, and
learn to trust and cling to him instead.
The world of 2018 can be a scary place and most of
us find ourselves grasping at something temporal for
security. Yet, in a simple cartoon and within just a
few lines, Linus teaches us to “fear not” and let go
of the blanket. In the midst of fear and insecurity,
this simple cartoon from 1965 continues to inspire
us that true security is only found in one place . .
. in one person. Jesus.
[Ron Otto, preaching minister, Lincoln Christian
Church] |
