Even as Christmas traditions are forced to change, the message of hope comes through
Christmas is an expectant, hopeful season for those who celebrate the birth of Christ and the spiritual renewal his coming represents.
The challenge for Christian churches this year is how to commemorate the holiday arriving at the height of a pandemic, when expectations of all kinds have been shattered and hope seems more scarce than COVID vaccines.
In North Carolina, churches are exempt from the governor’s order limiting indoor gatherings to 10 people. Many congregations will hold socially-distanced services on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Others will worship online-only, with a live or pre-recorded message and music. Some have planned Christmas drive-through worship events that give congregants a way to see others in their church families without taking a chance on catching — or transmitting — the virus.
Whether they deck the halls or have a silent night in the sanctuary, each congregation is figuring out which Christmas traditions are sacrosanct and which ones can be trimmed to their barest elements for safety’s sake.
“While we cannot gather safely in the ways to which we are accustomed, the search for mystery and the anticipation of waiting for love to be born again at Christmas still continues,” said the Rev. Elizabeth Marie Melchionna, rector of The Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill.
In a normal year, this would be a busy week in the life of The Chapel of the Cross, culminating with 2,000 people coming through to attend one of two performances of the Christmas pageant, a carol service and a Eucharist service on Christmas Eve, and a worship service on Christmas Day.
It wouldn’t be prudent to host such large events this year, but parishioners weren’t content to let go of all their Christmas traditions.
A double-whammy for the faithful
Religious rituals, including those that tell the story of the birth, life and death of Christ, are among the things believers of all faiths turn to in hard times. The pandemic has been a double-whammy for many religious faithful by bringing about so much loss and grief and then making it difficult for congregations to be close together physically to seek solace with their spiritual families.
Rituals are a form of architecture, Melchionna said, that people use to make sense of their lives. And when the rituals are stripped away, they feel at odds.
“So the invitation is, how do we still capture the essence of Christmas, just in new forms? Because Christians have been celebrating Christmas throughout the millennia and it has taken different shapes across space and time.”
So the Christmas pageant, normally held in the sanctuary with yarn-topped camels and shepherds wrapped in blankets tied with rope, was performed this year by parish families at their homes. The bits were knit together into a YouTube video that will be available beginning at noon on Christmas Eve.
Parishioners who reserved a socially distanced spot will attend one of three in-person Christmas Eve services, which will be held outside in the cloister despite a prediction of cold rain. At 9 p.m. that night, the church will livestream a Eucharist service. The Christmas Day service at 10 a.m. will be a YouTube livestream as well.
North Carolina Moravians have been celebrating Christmas with a lovefeast since settling in Bethabara, outside present-day Winston-Salem, in 1753. Raleigh Moravian Church knew it couldn’t host the three Christmas Eve lovefeasts it normally offers, which draw 300 to 500 people each. But the congregation couldn’t let go completely of the tradition of serving sweetened coffee and a nutmeg-kissed bun, singing call-and-response carols and sharing the “light of Christ” by passing a flame from one congregant’s beeswax candle to the next.
The Lovefeast Kit
Normally, more than two dozen church volunteers make from 1,200 to 1,400 of the mini-beeswax tapers that are wrapped in a red paper frill and handed out to worshipers. They couldn’t gather in the church kitchen to do that this year, but searching the stash, they found about 300 candles leftover from last year.
And so was born 2020’s Lovefeast Kit, a to-go version with most of the ingredients of the celebration. The 300 people who were able to reserve a kit will drive through the church parking lot on Christmas Eve morning and receive the candle, a lovefeast bun and printed words to the carols.
The service itself was prerecorded two days ahead to be shared by video on Christmas Eve.
Church Pastor Craig Troutman, in this 38th year at Raleigh Moravian, said it’s worth noting that Lovefeast has changed over the centuries; it originated as a children’s message that became a beloved non-doctrinaire event that now defines Christmas for many Moravians and others in denominations that had adopted it.
The importance of the ritual of the service, Troutman said, is that “If offers a template that we can replicate year after year. It has a context and certainly this year’s context is different. But the basic service and the basic core message has really not changed that much in however many years. That’s attractive for some people.
“That’s why Christmas is so evocative,” Troutman said. “Some people have their family traditions they try to replicate year after year, like, for our Christmas dinner we’re always going to have Grandmother’s rolls. It would not be Christmas without this particular element.
“I think that is just human nature; we’re comforted by that,” Troutman said. “We connect to the past and it’s something we want to impart to the generations to come. That trajectory is nice.”
But if COVID-19 has taught congregations anything, it’s that even the most tenacious traditions can change if they must. Most churches have moved to some form of online services during the pandemic — including some that had vowed they never would — and now plan to maintain an online presence even after the pandemic ends.
Melchionna, of The Chapel of the Cross, said it’s important to remember the promise of better times to come, especially at Christmas, and at the end of a long, difficult year.
In talking with parishioners who are struggling this season, Melchionna said, she acknowledges the pain and offers this Biblical reminder: “Indeed, light shines in the darkness, and darkness shall not overcome it.”
This story was originally published December 23, 2020 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Even as Christmas traditions are forced to change, the message of hope comes through."
