A Christmas reference might be more relevant during Advent than Lent, but since this Lenten blog has shared not only Lenten reflections but also glimpses of my spiritual journey, the classic Charlie Brown Christmas special needs to make an appearance.
For many kids who grew up on television, Charlie Brown specials were an annual event. They were available only by watching on broadcast television, long before cable TV and VHS became mainstream, let alone DVDs and DVRs. "Must-see TV" to me back then meant watching movies like "The Wizard of Oz" or Christmas specials like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" or "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." If you missed the one time it was shown that holiday season, you had to wait an entire year to have another opportunity.
Among all the Christmas specials, "Charlie Brown" stood out for me. In some ways that wasn't surprising because of all the newspaper comic strips, "Peanuts" was always special. I always used to read the comic strips in the order of personal favorites, from least to most favored (I still do actually). "Peanuts" always got to be the best, saved for last.
But "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was even more noteworthy. Even though I didn't grow up "in the church," I knew something was qualitatively different about it, because it was (and still is, I think) the only mainstream Christmas special that actually quoted Scripture. I didn't really understand or even come close to appreciating the full meaning of Luke's account of Christ's birth, as recited by Linus, but I knew that it was important. In the midst of bringing the comic strip to animated life, amongst the crazy vignettes of those lovable Peanuts characters caught up in over-commercialized yuletide madness and beautiful jazz music, Linus recites those precious words of Scripture over dead silence. There's no background music, no Foley artist adding sound effects. Just those important words, plain and simple.
Years later I've studied those words, the Lukan Christmas story, over and over again. Hearing Linus recite those words is now as much a part of spiritual journey as watching that Christmas special was part of my childhood.
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