Christmas Eve
Texts: Luke 2:1-20;
Isaiah 9:2-9
YouTube: https://youtu.be/2voTJ2GbBjw
BEDFORD FALLS OR POTTERSVILLE?
A fun topic of conversation at this time of year revolves around some of our holiday favorites. What’s your favorite Christmas cookie? Things can heat up a bit more when it comes around to your favorite holiday song or Christmas carol. There’s more narrow topics like which is your favorite of the classic 1960’s made-for-TV holiday children’s specials: Rudolf the Rednose Reindeer, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, or A Charlie Brown Christmas.
But undoubtedly the biggest controversy comes with: what is your favorite holiday movie? It might go off the rails a bit if you say Diehard — just because it takes place at Christmas. Doesn’t quite have a holiday feel. Is your favorite holiday movie a quirky comedy like A Christmas Story, where young Ralphie Parker tries to convince his parents to ask Santa Claus for a BB-gun? Or National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, starring Chevy Chase? How about one of the Home Alone movies? Or one of Tim Allen’s The Santa Clause movies? Younger generations, I’m told, go for something like Will Ferrell’s Elf.
Then there’s the holiday dramas, not strictly meant to be comedies. Top of the list are all the movie adaptations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge is my favorite. Many like the Muppets’ version with Michael Caine as Scrooge. Which is your favorite? Or your favorite holiday movie might be one of the older classics like White Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street, or It’s a Wonderful Like.
In our house, there’s no controversy as to our favorite holiday movie. The hands-down winner is It’s a Wonderful Life. In the time from Thanksgiving to Christmas, we probably average watching it about three times a year. Might seem crazy, but that’s because we will sometimes have it on while we’re doing other holiday activities, like decorating the Christmas tree or baking holiday cookies.
This has been nostalgic route, in fact, to introducing you to my theme for tonight: how to read Luke’s story of Christmas through the lens of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. I hope most of you have seen the movie at some point in your lives, please allow me to rehearse the main details.
Starring Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey and Donna Reed and his wife Mary, the story pivots around a life-or-death crisis which George Bailey faces on Christmas Eve in 1945. Eight thousand dollars have been misplaced by his Uncle Billy from their family business, the Bailey Building and Loan. How will he come up with $8,000 before the year-end bank examination. Desperate, George even resorts to going to his nemesis, Mr. Potter, the wealthy banker who controls much of the business in their town of Bedford Falls. Will Mr. Potter lend him the money? George offers his life insurance policy as collateral. Mr. Potter responds, “You’re worth more dead than alive! Why don’t you go to the riffraff you love so much and ask them to let you have $8,000?” His cynical question reveals the difference between the two men. George Bailey loves his neighbors. Mr. Potter sees them merely as “riff raff” to serve his accumulation of wealth. Potter’s response also plants a seed: After having a few drinks at the bar, George ends up on the bridge overlooking the raging river below, contemplating taking his own life. Perhaps he is better off dead.
The movie actually begins with Mary and his children and his friends offering up prayers for help. Up in heaven, the angels in charge call in Clarence Oddbody, Angel Second-class (he doesn’t yet have his wings), to send him as an answer to the prayers. Clarence will need to be brought up-to-speed on George Bailey’s life, leading up to the crisis. So the movie takes us through a retrospective of the crucial moments in George’s life that lead up to the fateful Christmas Eve.
Clarence learns that, at many crucial moments in George’s life, he has chosen the welfare of others over his own desires. Since he was a boy, George’s dream has been to be an adventurer. He wants to build great buildings as an architect and to travel the world to see all its great sights. The first big decision comes on the night of his younger brother Harry’s graduation from high school. George graduated four years earlier and has worked at the Building and Loan started by his father. He’s finally saved up enough money to go to college and begin his life of adventure, when George — in the middle of celebrating with Mary Hatch, who would become his future wife — he receives word that his father has had a stroke. In the weeks which follow, his father dies and the fate of their family business is at stake. The only thing which will save the Building and Loan is for George to take over. He gives his college money to Harry with the plan that Harry will take over in four years so that George can finally go to college and finally begin his life of adventure.
Yes, four years later George gives up his dreams again. Harry returns from college with a surprise. He has married a woman who’s father has offered him a good job and career in glass. Harry assures George that he will first take his turn at the family Building and Loan. But George once again delays his dreams in favor his brother’s welfare. At every step of the way, we watch George get married to Mary, have four children, and help his neighbors buy their first homes, not only putting the welfare of others first but also, just as importantly, thwarting the wealthy Mr. Potter from getting control of more and more of the businesses in Bedford Falls.
When Clarence the angel finally arrives to help George, as he contemplates suicide on the bridge, Clarence knows what to do. Clarence jumps into the river himself, knowing that George will put his own thoughts aside and jump in, not to harm himself but to help another human being. As they are drying off by a fire in the bridge-minder’s office, George admits that suicide is not the answer to his crisis, but also wonders if perhaps it was better that he had never been born in the first place. Clarence’s gift to George is to give him a glimpse of the world without his having ever been born. George sees that it isn’t any longer the Bedford Falls he knows. The name of the town has changed to Pottersville and bears the selfish stamp of wealthy miser who controls it. Pottersville is a dark place of people largely isolated and living lonely lives marked by Mr. Potter’s selfish worldview.
When Clarence returns George to his life, to face the consequences, George finds that his family and neighbors have come to his rescue, raising more than enough money to cover the $8,000 shortfall. The Bedford-Falls-with-him-in-it is a place where many often act selflessly like George, not selfishly like Mr. Potter. It is a place where neighbor will help neighbor. It ends on a note that the greatest wealth lies with having friends, with having relationships of care and mutual benefit with neighbors. As the movie ends with everyone singing “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” around the Christmas Tree, George is joyously grateful that he lives in Bedford Falls not Pottersville.
Full disclosure: I didn’t come up with the idea of using It’s a Wonderful Life to read the Christmas story on my own. A couple months ago I heard an interview with videographer and historian Ken Burns. He was making the rounds before the release of his latest historical film on The American Revolution, which aired on Public Broadcasting last month. He hoped that learning about the revolution which began our grand America experiment with democracy could shed some light on our current flirtation with authoritarianism. And he posed the question in terms of the movie we just rehearsed, It’s a Wonderful Life. Do we want to live in Bedford Falls or Pottersville? Do we want to live in a country where neighbors truly see themselves as created equal and help each other succeed? Or do we want to live in a country controlled by wealthy people like Mr. Potter, who see others as mere “riff raff” to be exploited and ruled over for their own gain?
So I close tonight by framing Luke’s story of Christmas in a similar fashion. While pregnant with Jesus, Mary has sung a song of God’s salvation in terms of a leveling. The mighty are brought down from their thrones and the lowly — like she herself — are lifted up. She has a vision of her son as bringing a time where neighbors can work together in mutual flourishing without being treated as mere “riff raff” by a few people at the top, who control most of the wealth and power. When Luke gets around to telling the story of Jesus’ birth, he begins by setting the stage with those wealthy folks who currently run everything: Caesar Augustus forced people from their homes to be registered, and Quirinius, a predecessor to Pontius Pilate, was the Roman governor. The angels proclaim to lowly shepherds the coming of a new king who would truly bring good news of peace to everyone.
It’s as if Luke is asking, “Do we want to live in Caesar’s reign or the Christ child’s reign?” Do we want to live in a nation where neighbors truly see themselves as created equal and help one another succeed? According to what the child Jesus, God’s Messiah, will teach us things like ‘Turn the other cheek,’ ‘Love your enemies,’ and care for the least of the human family? Or do we want to live in a country controlled by wealthy people like Caesar and Quirinius and Mr. Potter, who see others as mere “riff raff” to be exploited?
This is the choice offered to all people who hear this story each and every Christmas. Caesar’s kind of empire or the Christ child’s human family, where all people are created equal? In our own time, we might pose this choice as Ken Burns did: do we want to live in Pottersville or Bedford Falls? In a democracy, while we still have one, we actually have a choice. Amen
Paul J. Nuechterlein
Bethania Lutheran Church,
Racine, WI, December 24, 2025
YouTube: https://youtu.be/2voTJ2GbBjw
