FEAR NOT: A Children’s Christmas Classic That Actually Stands The Test Of Time
You don't need big budget effects, complicated storyline, magical animals or elves for a good one
Have you noticed how so many made-for-Christmas children’s specials do really well for a couple of years only to age very, very poorly?
Polar Express, for example, had A-list actors and fancy tech in the art. And it’s entirely unwatchable.
And yet something as simple as Charlie Brown struggling to grasp the meaning of Christmas with his janky little tree in an uncaring, over-commercialized world somehow stood the test of time. The artwork is only a little better than South Park, and yet that’s somehow part of the charm.
The backdrop and language is kinda dated. But the question the characters are grappling with…? Finding meaning in a world trying hard to teach us that there IS no meaning? If anything, that’s even worse now than ever before.
The kids from the comic strip (and Snoopy) are on a stage preparing a Christmas performance and, predictably, things have been going all wrong for Charlie Brown.
Mocked and laughed at by the other kids, and coming to the end of his rope, Charlie Brown calls out an angsty cry to anyone who may be listening. He shouts out the question he desperately needs to have answered…
‘Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?’
And of course, there WAS someone who knew that answer, Linus. He explained to Charlie Brown by reciting — from memory — the events from the second chapter of the gospel of Luke.
He performed a one-man Christmas Pageant explaining what Christmas was all about. The birth of a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
The most subtle and beautiful part of the entire monologue is where Linus drops his trademark security blanket… at exactly the moment when the Angel says ‘fear not’. The rest of the scene is performed with both hands free.
A small and sublte picture of the freedom we enjoy in Christ.