Well before I ever wrote for Axis, I, at the age of ten, played Nathan in a stage production of The Christmas Shoes at my church. That’s right, I was cast as the boy who purchased the infamous shoes for my terminally ill mother.
Thankfully my real-life mother is alive and well, of course, the fact I was in a church play at ten is nothing to be embarrassed by, but it is a funny anecdote and story to tell when the song comes up every year.
“The Christmas Shoes” (the song, not the play) tends to be pretty divisive. Some people appreciate the sweet message of an innocent kid wanting to do something nice for his mother. Others might see it as a strange song telling a baffling story about a man learning the true meaning of Christmas through the grief and suffering of a child. As the bridge puts it, “I knew that God had sent that little boy / To remind me, what Christmas is all about.”
Rediscovering “the true meaning of Christmas” is such a popular trope in Christmas media that it’s a borderline cliché. Charlie Brown, Ebeneezer Scrooge, and even the dad from Elf all need to be reminded what Christmas is all about.
Yet, none of them get it quite right, including our nameless narrator who buys the eponymous shoes. While the theme of generosity is a core part of Christmas, “The Christmas Shoes” fails to capture the more subtle interwoven theme of sacrifice. Buying the shoes doesn’t really cost the adult anything, and his conclusion in the aforementioned bridge is pretty self-centered.
In Mark 12, Jesus tells a parable of a poor widow. While rich people are donating large sums of money to the temple (and making a show of it), the widow chooses to give her final two copper coins. Jesus concludes, “This poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
Even the widow’s sacrifice pales in comparison to the sacrifice of Jesus we celebrate at Christmas and what it leads to: Easter. The sacrifice and love of our savior Jesus to step down from his throne in the heavenly places to become a helpless, powerless baby destined to die to a sinner’s death at the very hands he helped create. He truly gave everything he had.
Conversation Starter: What’s a way we could be extraordinarily generous this Christmas?