The term “MacGuffin” was coined by a screenwriter Alfred Hitchcock worked with named Angus MacPhail and is the mysterious object in a thriller that sets the whole chain of events into motion.
Think of the ring in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen or in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. It is the falcon in The Maltese Falcon. It is the Holy Grail in countless books and movies.
But most of all, said Hitchcock, “The main thing I’ve learned over the years is that the MacGuffin is nothing. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the MacGuffin is that it contains the word ‘guff,’ which means a load of nonsense.” 1
A MacGuffin relates to Christmas when you try to make this Christmas the best Christmas ever. You may think that having the best decorated home, the best Christmas dinner, giving the best presents, or anything else will make it the best but it won’t.
Preachers get severe cases of “flop sweats” this time of year when they try to write the best Christmas sermon in the history of time. I always remind my brothers and sisters in the clergy what Dr. John M. Buchanan’s wife Caroline told him when he was fretting over his last Christmas sermon at Fourth Presbyterian:
“Stop worrying about this. We don’t come on Christmas Eve to hear a sermon. We just want to hear the story, sing the carols, light a candle, and get home at a reasonable hour.” I didn’t lament this year, but she told me anyway as I was working: “Remember, we just want to hear the story, sing the carols, and light a candle.” 2
No “guff” in that. It is straightforward and correct.
No preacher can conjure up Christmas joy and no amount of work can bring it. Joy just happens. The joy you chase after just may be a MacGuffin.
So, I can’t tell you where you will find joy this Advent/Christmas season.
All I can do is suggest that you not blast your way through this beautiful time making plans for New Years’ Eve - which also can turn into a MacGuffin.
Take time to ponder, and pray, and thank God for your blessings, your dear ones whose love is so very precious. Ponder the mystery of God whose love for you is greater than anything you will every experience. And then, ponder the greatest mystery of all, God coming into the world as a child, to become one of us and to journey with us full of grace and truth.
In my favorite Christmas Movie, The Bishop’s Wife, Henry Brougham, thinks that his greatest joy will be in the completion of a new Cathedral. It is his quest. It is his MacGuffin. Instead, through the intervention of an angel, who hits on his wife, he discovers that joy is not in a building but in the people he loves.
At the conclusion of the movie he preaches this Christmas sermon.
Tonight I want to tell you the story of an empty stocking. Once upon a midnight clear, there was a child's cry, a blazing star hung over a stable, and wise men came with birthday gifts.
We haven't forgotten that night down the centuries. We celebrate it with stars on Christmas trees, with the sound of bells, and with gifts.
But especially with gifts. You give me a book, I give you a tie. Aunt Martha has always wanted an orange squeezer and Uncle Henry can do with a new pipe.For we forget nobody, adult or child. All the stockings are filled, all that is, except one.
And we have even forgotten to hang it up. The stocking for the child born in a manger.
Its his birthday we're celebrating. Don't let us ever forget that.
Let us ask ourselves what He would wish for most. And then, let each put in his share, loving kindness, warm hearts, and a stretched out hand of tolerance.
All the shining gifts that make peace on earth.3
And joy in our hearts.
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1. _____, "Alfred Hitchcock Explains the Plot Device He Called the ‘MacGuffin’. Openculture.com. July 9, 2013.
http://www.openculture.com/2013/07/alfred-hitchcock-explains-the-plot-device-he-called-the-macguffin.html
2. John M. Buchanan, “A Christmas Eve Sermon.” The Fourth Church Pulpit. December 24, 2011.
3. The Bishop's Wife. Dir. Henry Koster. Prod. Samuel Goldwyn. By Robert E. Sherwood and Leonardo Bercovici. Perf. Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven. RKO Radio Pictures, 1947. Videocassette.
Which one played the wife?
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