A Finger Pointing to the Sky

We enjoy watching foreign films. One of our favourites is the French film Amélie. It’s a quirky comedy about a strange young lady who falls in love with a stranger whose scrapbook album she has recovered after it falls off his scooter. She returns it to him via a mysterious treasure hunt of clues that leads him to the Sacre Couer, an elevated plaza in Paris. And as he is following the clues he comes across one of those mimes who paint themselves silver and act like statues. The mime points up the hill to where Amélie is standing with his scrapbook, and as he stands there looking at the mime, a boy whom Amélie has obviously paid comes up to him and says “he is a fool who looks at the finger of one pointing to the sky.” Then he looks up the hill to where the mime is pointing and sees Amélie with his precious scrapbook. He is a fool who looks at the finger of one pointing to the sky. What a great illustration of Christmas. Because sadly, many people treat Christmas that way. But Christmas is merely like the hand of that mime. It is nothing in itself, it just points to the one that really matters. But we can be to others like the boy that Amélie paid to give the man the key to finding his treasure. We can remind others that Christmas is merely like a finger pointing to the sky. It is the one that Christmas points us to that we must see, hear and rejoice in, like those ancient shepherds did that first Christmas Eve.