Narrative Advent 2

A Very Gothic Christmas

Beginning the Story

A very long long time ago Christmas had another name. It was called Yule – and was a celebration of the darkness. Well – for Vikings and all of those pre-medieval folks of Europe it was a 12 day festival and feast centering around midwinter – around the great hunt of Odin in the sky – and was accompanied by an increase in the undead walking around…

For a thousand years before Jesus was born Christmas was a time of Ghost Stories!

And that continued right through the Christian Era – when Christmas was modernized in Victorian England it was done with the popularity of a ghost story – the story of a hapless merchant named Marley who came back to haunt his business partner – Ebeneezer Scrooge...

You all know the tale – Scrooge was a mean-hearted miserly man who is urged by a progression of ghosts to med his ways and start being compassionate. All of this happens on Christmas Eve and by journeying to his own past, present and future with the accompanying ghosts – Scrooge is transformed into a giddy, loving, generous man who keeps Christmas in his heart every day.

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in the 1800s – and he wrote it in a particular style, a genre, part of romantic fiction called Gothic Horror. There are four notable examples of Gothic Horror when you look it up – Dracula, Frankenstein, The works of Edgar Allen Poe, and A Christmas Carol.

There is another thing about Gothic Horror – the stories are …. trans-formative. They focus on the change that the reality and darkness of life cause on an individual – whether it is Frankenstein’s monster coming to grips with the hatred humans have for that which is different – or Dracula falling in love with the doppelganger of his long lost love – the events change the characters. By confronting the darkness and evil they grow and become better.

How is that for a different spin on Christmas? I am taking back the original pagan way of seeing it – Christmas is about finding your way in the dark.

Sharing the Story with kids

Candles in the Window

This tradition started in Ireland. It was originally about lighting a candle to help Mary and Joseph find their way to Bethlehem…. Because it was also something that Catholic families did in a country where being Catholic was illegal. It was a secret symbol for the priest who might be walking by that a Catholic Family lived here… and might want a visit.

Either way – it was about lighting the way in the darkness and became a symbol of hope. 

A Reading

Esther 4:1-17
So let me tell you a story – a biblical story…
When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went through the city, wailing with a loud and bitter cry; he went up to the entrance of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. In every province, wherever the king’s command and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and most of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.

When Esther’s maids and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed; she sent garments to clothe Mordecai so that he might take off his sackcloth; but he would not accept them. Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what was happening and why. Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate, and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther, explain it to her, and charge her to go to the king to make supplication to him and entreat him for her people.

Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a message for Mordecai, saying, “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—all alike are to be put to death. Only if the king holds out the golden scepter to someone, may that person live. I myself have not been called to come into the king for thirty days.” When they told Mordecai what Esther had said, Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai,“Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish

The Story Unfolds

The story of Queen Esther is, yes, you guessed it, a Gothic Horror. Or at the very least a story where darkness and tragedy transforms an individual. I read you a section of the middle – and most of us do not know the story, despite it being one of the most famous stories of the Bible to feature a woman hero.

So let me give you an overview of the book of Esther.

Esther lived in ancient Persia about 100 years after the Jews were conquered by Babylon. When Esther's parents died, the orphaned child was adopted and raised by her older cousin Mordecai.
One day the king of the Persian Empire, Xerxes I, threw a lavish party. On the final day of the festivities, he called for his queen, Vashti, eager to flaunt her beauty to his guests. But the queen refused to appear before Xerxes. Filled with anger, he deposed Queen Vashti, forever removing her from his presence.

To find his new queen, Xerxes hosted a royal beauty pageant and Esther was chosen for the throne. Her cousin Mordecai became a minor official in the Persian government of Susa.

Soon after, Mordecai uncovered a plot to assassinate the king. He told Esther about the conspiracy, and she reported it to Xerxes, giving credit to Mordecai. The plot was thwarted and Mordecai's act of kindness was preserved in the chronicles of the king.

At this same time, the king's highest official was a wicked man named Haman. He hated the Jews and he especially hated Mordecai, who had refused to bow down to him.

So, Haman devised a scheme to have every Jew in Persia killed. The king bought into the plot and agreed to annihilate the Jewish people on a specific day. Meanwhile, Mordecai learned of the plan and shared it with Esther. Esther urged all of the Jews to fast and pray for deliverance. Then risking her own life, brave young Esther approached the king with a plan.

She invited Xerxes and Haman to a banquet where eventually she revealed her Jewish heritage to the king, as well as Haman's diabolical plot to have her and her people killed. In a rage, the king ordered Haman to be hung on the gallows – the very same gallows Haman had built for Mordecai.

Mordecai was promoted to Haman's high position and Jews were granted protection throughout the land. The Festival they created to honour this was Purim and is still celebrated today.

So the Bible tells a story of how an evil villain plotted to kill an entire people – and the rich Queen who was pretending not to be Jewish sees this happening and is changed by it – admitting her faith and saving her people.

Esther – Scrooge – Frankenstein – Dracula…. It is a powerful story because it cuts close to the quick – we get it. We allow ourselves to become comfortable, or even comfortably numb, to the horrors around us in order to be happy, or rich, or famous, or just to make our lives simpler – and that works for a while – until we turn out the lights.

Ideas to Take With Us

So we have the story of Esther – we have the story of Scrooge – and we have the story of us.
Here is the Gothic story of Jesus – there was an evil king, who was so full of himself that when he heard a prince had been born who would eventually be more powerful than him – decided to have every male toddler and baby in the country killed. It was a horrific time. The Romans conquered and it made matters worse.

In the midst of the pain and darkness however – some people chose to allow the experience to change them, to start to see things differently, to embrace love as an answer – and the leader of this movement was one of the few children to survive that horrible night of the long knives.
Christmas is Yule is midwinter is darkness with the glimmer of light.

It is, to again quote dickens a time when we should, as Scrooge declared: “honour Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”

So I want to make the case for seeing the darkness of the world and allowing the light of Christmas to transform us in the midst of it. Allow this season to work its magic in your soul – and it shall be a very Merry Christmas indeed.