A new Christmas movie was released this year titled, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.” I haven’t seen the movie, but I have read the book and I’m familiar with the story. The movie centers around the Herdman siblings and their surprising involvement with a church Christmas pageant. A synopsis of the movie explains it this way: The Herdman kids are absolutely the worst. They lie. They steal. They bully…and they’ve hijacked the town Christmas pageant...[They] sneak into church looking for snacks and walk away with the lead roles in the town pageant. And so it appears the program will be ruined! But in spite of (or maybe because of) their unorthodox and unusual presentation the pageant is actually deemed the best Christmas pageant ever!

The phrase “best ever” is a superlative. It expresses the highest degree possible. Superlative adjectives are used to describe something of the highest (or lowest) quality. I remember my mother sharing this little rhyme with me, “Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better, and your better best.” Best is the superlative. That’s as good as it gets!

Advertisers and public figures, such as politicians and athletes, are prone to use superlatives declaring they are the best, the greatest, the wisest, and the smartest. But when superlatives are overused they become hyperboles and meaningless. In the Christmas movie Elf, there’s a comical scene that illustrates this very well. When Buddy the Elf discovers that he was adopted as a baby and is not really an elf at all, he travels to New York City in search of his birth father. As he explores the city, he sees a small, nondescript diner with a sign in the window that reads: World’s Best Cup of Coffee. Buddy is ecstatic. He bursts into the restaurant yelling, “Congratulations! You did it!” In his simplistic view, he has no idea that it is merely an advertising gimmick. It is meaningless.

Was the Christmas pageant in the movie really the “best Christmas pageant ever”? Probably not. But I am reminded of an older movie considered a classic called, “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” Is this even possible? What story could possibly be the greatest? There is one! And it begins with the Christmas story! What God has done for us through the birth and life and death of His only begotten Son is indeed the greatest story ever told!

In Scripture, God is often acknowledged as the Most High God, declaring Him to be the Supreme Being over all. And yet it is difficult to use superlatives to describe who God is, because there is no one or anything to compare Him with. He alone is God! God Himself asks in Isaiah 40:25: To whom will you compare me? Who is my equal? and later He declares I am the Lord and there is no other; there is no God besides me. And when we think of what He has done for us and the blessings He gives us, we are often at a loss for words, because as David expresses in Psalm 139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand. Nothing in this world compares with what God has done for us! We are given, according to the Bible, “indescribable joy”, “peace which surpasses all understanding”, and “exceeding grace”. Because of Him, we can “abound with hope” and “overflow with confidence”! And so we ponder the thought, Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. (1John 3:1) It’s a love we can experience, but will never completely understand. There’s an abundance to God and His love for us that is greater than any superlative can express!

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