I’m sure you all know the TV show “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” probably the best-loved Christmas special ever produced.
At the climax of what is supposed to be an animated cartoon, for a full minute one small character, Linus, stands perfectly still all alone on a stage and recites verses from the King James Bible. There is no music, no other movement, no special effects, just the words of Chapter 2 of Luke’s gospel recited by a lisping little boy.
One week before “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was to be televised, it was screened for the first time by two CBS executives, who both panned it, criticizing nearly everything about it. “The Bible thing especially scares us,” they said. In fact everybody connected with the business end of the show said the same: “You can’t mix religion with entertainment.”
Everyone tried to dissuade Charles Schulz from including the long scripture passage, but he insisted on having it, telling the executives, the sponsors, and the ad people, “There will always be a market for innocence in this country.” And on December 9, 1965, when “A Charlie Brown Chrismas” premiered, and every December since, Schulz has been proven right.
In Schulz’s own Bible, next to the account of Christ’s birth in Matthew he wrote: “Christmas is primarily a children’s day, for it takes the innocent faith of a child to appreciate it. The Christmas story is filled with characters who have the same perfect faith, from Joseph and Mary to the three wise men. The Christmas story is a story of purity and can be appreciated only by the pure mind. Our Lord is a holy God, and if we are to approach Him, we must be holy and pure and filled with the same faith as the wise men.”
Throughout his life Charles Schulz suffered from terrible bouts of depression, probably a result of PTSD from his war experiences. It may be that the reason the passage from Luke 2 was so important to him came down to five words spoken by the angel: “Fear not” and “Peace on earth.”
Here is a link to the scene of Linus reciting this famous passage. It’s his answer to Charlie Brown who cries despairingly, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?” As you watch and listen, you’ll notice that for the first and only occasion in the fifty-year history of this comic strip, Linus drops his security blanket. Many, many times others had tried to separate Linus from his blanket, but it never happens until this moment when he says the words of the angel, “Fear not.”
What is your security blanket? This Christmas, as you open your ears to the message of Linus and the angel, maybe you could let it go? And maybe, in your heart, there could be peace on earth.
[Much of the content of this piece is informed by Michael Keane’s Charlie Brown’s Christmas Miracle: The Inspiring Untold Story of the Making of a Holiday Classic.]
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