Risky Gifts

While the commercial world rushes recklessly toward its version of Christmas, the church’s world, when its heart is right, prepares for the more sober, reflective season of Advent, Christmas joy to follow. This approaching Advent my spirit is struck by a new-to-me Christmas poem, Francis Chesterton’s, “Here is the Little Door.” I believe it was written around the First World War, though I haven’t been able to confirm that.

Here is the little door, lift up the latch, oh lift!

We need not wander more but enter with our gift;

Our gift of finest gold,

Gold that was never bought nor sold;

Myrrh to be strewn about his bed;

Incense in clouds about his head;

All for the Child who stirs not in his sleep.

But holy slumber holds with ass and sheep.

Bend low about his bed, for each he has a gift;

See how his eyes awake, lift up your hands, O lift!

For gold, he gives a keen-edged sword

(Defend with it Thy little Lord!),

For incense, smoke of battle red.

Myrrh for the honoured happy dead;

Gifts for his children terrible and sweet,

Touched by such tiny hands and 

Oh such tiny feet.

I do not pretend to understand this poem completely, which is the way of fine poetry. But I think that Chesterton is getting at the risks inherent in giving and in receiving great gifts. Are we up to handling them?

The first stanza gives voice to the Wise Men and their gifts to the infant, sleeping Jesus–gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

The second stanza places gifts in the hands of a sinister and cynical Jesus, who seems to return those gifts to "his children" in drastically altered form. Instead of gold he gives a sword; instead of sweet incense he gives the smoke of battle. And Jesus gives myrrh to anoint the bodies of “the honoured happy dead,” not his own body. That strange pairing of words suggests something “terrible and sweet.” But I am not sure: are the gifts “terrible and sweet,” or are Jesus's children, who receive those gifts, "terrible and sweet"? What has his touch made of them?

It is not hard to imagine that Chesterton, writing in a time of war, was reflecting on how easily we succumb to misusing the gifts we give and receive. Like children, we turn gifts, including the gift of faith, into reasons to compare ourselves to others, and to prove either that we are more worthy than others or that we just have not been given what we are due. We fight to keep what we have or to get what we deserve.

Blogger Charlie Warren hears the poem as a caution against the “ever-present possibility for bold faith to be used in the service of deadly hate.” His warning resonates deeply in me tonight.

Fine gifts divide us. We’d perhaps be better off if there were no such gifts given, if we were just simply free to receive the tiny touch of the humanity that is our common gift.

The community choir I am rehearsing with these days is singing Herbert Howell’s sensitive 1918 setting of Francis Chesterton’s poem. It is the musical highpoint of our concert for me, and it haunts me as Advent begins. What am I to do with the Gift that I am preparing to receive? What is the world to do with it?