The Nutcracker: Changing Perspectives

Luke 2:8-11; Luke 3:1-2

Many good storylines present the reader or the viewer with some element of danger. Every good protagonist has an antagonist. It brings conflict into the story and heightens the tension. I remember I wasn’t too old when I first saw the Christmas television special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The cast of characters included, in addition to Rudolph and Santa of course, Rudoph’s parents, his female friend Clarice, Hermey the elf who wants to be a dentist, and Yukon Cornelius, a silver and gold prospector. An element of danger was brought into the story in the character of the Abominable Snowman. I don’t remember much surrounding the circumstances of my first viewing of Rudolph, but I do know I was terrified by the Abominable Snowman. I look at the quality of the production now – or the lack thereof – and laugh, but that wasn’t the case years ago. In the story of The Nutcracker, the initial entrance of Herr Drosselmeir interjects an element of mystery but once his identity is revealed that quickly disappears. The element of danger comes in Clara’s dream sequence when we meet the Mouse King. After the party is over, the presents have been opened, and the guests return to their homes, Clara and she goes off to bed. In a dream, or perhaps more accurately nightmare, Clara returns to the parlor, the clock strikes midnight, and dozens of mice run into the room. The Christmas tree grows to an enormous height and in a great puff of smoke a huge mouse appears. The mouse is the king of all the other mice and a battle ensues between the Mouse King and his forces of evil against the Nutcracker and his army of wooden soldiers. To Clara, the battle seems real – soldiers are injured including the Nutcracker and for a while it seems like the Mouse King and his army will emerge victorious. With Clara’s help, the Nutcracker is able to defeat the Mouse King and the mice carry off their defeated leader while Clara rushes to her fallen hero. That’s where we are going to end the story for this morning; we’ll return to the conclusion of the story next Sunday.

When we think of the life of Jesus, we tend to think of the cross as being the dark side of the story, but Christmas also has a dark side. There’s a good reason why the angels told the shepherds, “Do not be afraid.” While Luke 2 tells a wonderfully uplifting story of angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest,” and the shepherds finding Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus in the stable, Luke 3 opens with a very different tone: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee … during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.” 

The danger comes in the introduction of a number of names, a cast of characters who will influence events throughout Jesus’ life, bringing danger – and death – into the Christmas story. Tiberius, the Roman emperor, is remembered historically as a brilliant general and a cruel tyrant. He killed anyone who might be a potential heir to his throne, and he ordered the execution of many of Rome’s senators who opposed his oppressive policies. One historical article says of Tiberius: “He led Rome into a dark age of political purges, murder, and terror.” History records that Tiberius was smothered to death by his nephew and heir Caligula, who, as it turns out, actually made Tiberius look good by comparison. The next name in Luke’s list is Pontius Pilate, a name that will come up much later in Jesus’ life, as will the names Annas and Caiaphas. Pilate was the governor of Judea who authorized Jesus’ execution on the cross; Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests of the Sanhedrin responsible for Jesus’ arrest, his trial before the council, and his appearance before Pilate that led to his execution. Then there’s Herod, the ruler of Galilee. He was the Roman-appointed king of Judea, who also happened to be Jewish. The Gospel of Matthew relates how Herod, knowing the prophecies which told of a Messiah to be born in Bethlehem and having been visited by the wise men looking for such a child, ordered the murder of all male children under the age of two born in and around the Bethlehem area. This act is known as the “Massacre of the Innocents,” but Herod’s reign of terror was not limited to these children – he also ordered the killing of three of his own sons. We don’t need a fictional Mouse King to tell us about evil and suffering in the world, but the story of the Mouse King has several things to tell us about suffering and our perspective of it when we face it in our lives.

First, the Mouse King is larger than life, and evil and suffering often appear that way to us. The evil in the world around us that manifests itself in violence, injustice, poverty, and homelessness often seem too big for us. The pain and suffering we endure often seems larger than life. We can’t as individuals or as a church, stop any of these things and it seems like doing anything at all amounts to doing nothing. But perspective matters.

Were you ever in a place as a child that you visited later as an adult? Maybe it was a theme park or a stadium or even a church? The child-you thought the place was enormous, but the adult-you wondered if it had shrunk over the years. Too often, we view the kingdom of God in much the same way. We see our limited impact, the small things our church does in our community, and we think we aren’t making a difference. But there’s a saying I heard a couple years ago that rings true for me: “It’s not my job to feed the five thousand. My only job is to provide a loaf or a fish.” 

When we hear all the negativity about the church today and about the number of people who don’t believe in Christ, it’s easy to get discouraged and think the problem is beyond our reach. Maybe it’s because we think we have to solve the problem, and the truth is we can’t. Thankfully we aren’t expected to. We are expected to pray. We are expected to live out our faith. We are expected to love. We are expected to bring our best effort to the kingdom. And we are expected to believe that God is capable of doing more than we can imagine. The bad that surrounds us may look big, but we need to remember some words from the Bible. “God’s kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. His dominion endures throughout all generations.” Ps. 145:13. Luke 1:33: “His kingdom will have no end.” Revelation 11:15: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign for ever and ever.” Jesus told Peter and the other disciples that the church would last forever; the gates of hell would not. John Wesley said he wanted his people called Methodist to fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God. He said such people would shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven upon earth. Sin forces our perspective into thinking that the problems of this world are too big for us – and can only be solved by governments or corporations or wealthy people or whatever. We lose sight that we are part of the bigger kingdom of God. If we look at the world from God’s perspective, we just need to do a little shaking and let God do the rest. 

The second lesson we can take from this part of The Nutcracker story is that the battles we perceive going on in our lives aren’t always real. The Nutcracker battle scene comes out of Clara’s dream: army soldiers and toy mice aren’t really fighting, and the Mouse King and the Nutcracker are just toys Drosselmeir made. It’s all a figment of Clara’s imagination and yet it seems very real to her. From the outside looking in, we see the fiction. We see the big picture, read the whole story. From our perspective, we have questions Clara never asks and the author never answers for us. What is the reason for the fighting? Is there something to be gained or lost? Is fighting just something they do, a way to pass the time? We ask the same questions in our lives. Why is there evil in the world? Why is their pain and suffering? Why do bad people seem to prosper? Questions for which we don’t have answers, but God has answers. 

God story, from creation to second coming, is big and incomprehensible to our human understanding. And yet, at Christmas it comes to us in a way we can understand. I accept but can’t grasp creation. The same is true with resurrection. As I get older, I believe our lives on earth are too short. But what will eternity look like? A baby born to a young couple in a small town I can understand. As to my other questions, I have a promise and a hope based on that promise. I have God’s promise that someday all be revealed, and I will understand. As the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13: “For we know only in part … but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now, we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” Clara, as a child, only knows what she perceives in front of her. The same is true with us. There is a fight in our world between good and evil. We know that good will win out in the end but in the meantime, we can only see what is in front of us and we don’t have answers. What do we do now? Paul continues in 1 Corinthians 13: “Now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.” We have faith, we hope, and we love. 

The final lesson is the realization that we need the Mouse King. Without him, there wouldn’t be much of a story. He appears out of nowhere, without warning, and he brings the Nutcracker and the toy soldiers to life. The Mouse King is in the puppet show and the battle scene. He provides the drama in the story, and without him we’d just have a Christmas party where nothing happens. The Mouse King seems menacing and dangerous, but in the end he’s not real. The Christmas story calls us to focus on what is real. Jesus came into the world because the world needed a Savior. Jesus will come again because the world still needs saving. The evil hat is around us seems menacing and dangerous, but it will fade away. Good wins out. The drama makes the Christmas story one that we want to share. It’s a story that begins with creation and has no end. The baby born in a manger is a small part of the drama, but it makes the story personal and real. 

Fear and suspicion can easily become the dominant feelings of our day. We feel like we’re fighting battles, and they feel very real to us. The Christmas story reminds us that God is with us and that we are meant to share it with one another. Our Christmas hymns are rarely told from a first-person perspective. “O come let us adore him.” “O little town of Bethlehem how still we see Thee lie.” “Angels we have heard on high.” “With the angels let us sing, hallelujah to our king.” “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.” Christmas brings us together, causes us to look back to the past, and invites us to share our faith for today and our hope for tomorrow.