Friday, December 24, 2010

The Hope(lessness) of Christmas

Tonight, we celebrate one of the darkest nights of the year.

A young girl turns up pregnant, claiming that it's the mystery of God (would you believe such an outrageous story from your own daughter?). Disgraced, her soon-to-be husband has to be convinced by an angel that she speaks the truth and that he should not leave her.

They travel to Bethelehem in order to register for a census. A census meant taxes, taxes that were shouldered by the poor. As the story continues, Luke doesn't tell us what he assumes we already know: pregnant out of wedlock, Mary is a glowing symbol of shame, and there is simply no room for her or her shameful husband in the guest-room of more honorable family members.

And to us, a child was born...given...

It wasn't the obvious favorites of God -- the priests, the wealthy, the rulers of this world -- who were made privy to this Beauty and Mystery. Shepherds, perpetually unclean simply because of their vocation (and thereby displeasing in the eyes of the Lord and his favorites), left their flocks to pay homage to the Lamb of God (a Johannine term, yes, but one that reaches beyond itself into the rest of the New Testament). Astrologers, those who sit in darkness in order to scout the divine, arrive in Jerusalem, the city on a hill, to congratulate Herod on the birth of his son (because a prince is born in the palace of his father, the king). Herod, ever-fearful of any threat to his own power, celebrates through a vicious slaughter of the innocent.

A far cry from the sanitized pageantry that we read into the story.

The story of Christmas is a dark story. It's about the omniscient gaze of those who know what it is that a young girl has done. It's about the poor getting poorer. It's about a puppet king doing anything he can to preserve his power. It's about darkness, despair, and hopelessness.

And yet...

In the midst of this unconquerable evil, God arrives. The divine response to all of this darkness is a helpless baby, an idea so absurd and so beautiful that I can't help but be drawn to it -- because who sends a child to do the toilsome work of a God?

If Christmas is "about" anything, it's not about hope. It's not about light. It's not about peace. It's about hope in the midst of hopelessness, a light that can only be seen because it shines in the midst of the darkness, and peace in the midst of a seemingly insurmountable chaos.

"There has been born for you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord..."

I need this Advent, this Immanuel, this "God With Us." Because I have no other light to follow in the midst of this years-long night. I have no other hope that can tear out the hopelessness that sometimes seems to take root in my soul.

"Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?" He's out there, somewhere in the darkness. Go. Find him.

Merry Christmas.

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