PRESENTATION ON
THE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS

THE LATIN SCHOOL
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

DECEMBER 6, 1990

JOHN M. BUCHANAN, PASTOR
FOURTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CHICAGO

A Saturday on the corner of Michigan
Avenue and Chestnut, the corner where I live, is -
in the month of December, something to behold.

-more people and autos than the intersection
can handle

-with Lord & Taylor, Marshal] Fields,
Bloomies, Bendels, buses lined up from Valparaiso,
Kankakee and Waukegan...

-sidewalk Santas, Salvation Army brass
quartets playing carols...

-sidewalk performers: one man with trombone
whose entire repertoire is "Winter Wonderland," the
mime who stands deadly still, the jazz drummer who
sets up in front of the Hancock

-2 kids selling candy for a basketball] team

-one scuffily dressed man asking for
donations for the homeless

-Jews for Jesus handing out pamphlets

—a man dressed up like a lobster,
advertising a seafood restaurant

-the anti-fur coalition, picketing at Water
Tower and verbally assaulting startled shoppers

-2 mounted police..

What in the world is going on?...
Obviously something very important to get the
individual attention of these people...
(They are determined, heads into the wind, on an
important mission)

700,000,000 on North Michigan Avenue — most
‘in December —

and it began not at Thanksgiving, or even
Halloween - but Lord and Taylor had wreaths up mid-
October .

What, if anything, does it have to do with

religion ins

-specifically the birth of a little Jewis
baby in a remote Palestinian village 2,000 years
ago -

That it is more than commerce — our art
testifies -

-probably no scene is painted with as much
elegance and tenderness and powr as

the annunciation
Some of our most sublime music

J. S. Bach - Christmas Oratorio

Magnificat

Advent Chorales

G. F. Handel

Messiah

Benjamin Britten - Ceremony of Carols

Literature and Poetry -

part of my recent

two major works

British poet W.H. Auden
For the Time Being

What is going on?

Let's look at history for part of an answer.