We have a carved olive wood nativity set on the sideboard in our dining room—Mary and Joseph, shepherds, donkey, sheep all gathered around a manger—have you ever thought that that it’s all Luke’s Christmas story?
Quiet, peaceful, a baby sleeping, sheep gently bleating on a hillside, an angel’s song… “Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm, all is bright…sleep in heavenly peace” Luke could have written that Christmas carol himself.
What about Matthew’s Christmas story? It’s the Christmas story we rarely hear in church.
The wise men, not the baby, are the center of Matthew’s story. Matthew’s story ends with a face-doused-with-cold-water wake-up call of life in Herod’s world. (See Matthew 2:3-18).
Now it’s not angelic choirs, but soldiers pounding on doors. Now it’s not “Silent Night, Holy Night,” but mothers screaming in agony. Now it’s not a baby in a manger, but mothers fleeing with their children, the bodies of infants and toddlers put to the sword staining the sand red (as many as 40-50, scholars estimate).
Our critics say: “your Christmas peace is an illusion.” Pretending the world is cozy and nice doesn’t make it so. Herod still calls the shots in this world.
Our critics say: “what if we take away your affluence and safe neighborhood….no tree, no presents, no turkey, just an empty place at the table because your 7-year-old little girl jumped the wrong way while playing jump rope and caught a gang members drive-by bullet.”
Our critics say: “you feel peaceful as long as you hide in the stable with the shepherds. But step outside into Herod’s world and your peace quickly evaporates.
Is the peace of Christmas an illusion in Herod’s world
We often think Advent begins the Christmas season, but, (at least liturgically), the Christmas season is the 12 days after Christmas. Advent is a time of preparation, not celebration. Advent is intentional waiting—a time of personal introspection and examination as we await God’s promise of a Messiah.
Yet waiting is uncomfortable in a society that expects everything instantly. As a worship planner, I’ve fought a losing battle trying to help my people appreciate the more solemn, yearning Advent hymns when they want happy Christmas carols.
Advent asks us to prepare for Jesus, the Light of the World, by focusing on darkness—the darkness around us and within us.
In her article “Want to Get into the Christmas Spirit? Face the Darkness” Tish Harrison Warren writes:
To practice Advent is to lean into an almost cosmic ache: our deep, wordless desire for things to be made right and the incompleteness we find in the meantime. We dwell in a world still racked with conflict, violence, suffering, darkness.
Advent holds space for our grief, and it reminds us that all of us, in one way or another, are not only wounded by the evil in the world but are also wielders of it, contributing our own moments of unkindness or impatience or selfishness.
We suffer from a collective consumerist mania that demands we remain optimistic, shiny, happy and having fun, fun, fun.
But life isn’t a Disney Cruise. The tyranny of relentless mandatory celebration leaves us exhausted and often, ironically, feeling emptier.
Many of us suffer from “holiday blues,” and I wonder whether this phenomenon is made worse by the incessant demand for cheer — the collective lie that through enough work and positivity, we can perfect our lives and our world.
The first church I served was in the steel valleys of western Pennsylvania. Our town’s largest industry, employing some 1,200 workers, was the Greenville Steel Car company. They produced railroad cars, as many as 5-6 huge cars rolling off an assembly line every day when the plant was going full tilt.
Several of our members had worked there since High School. They had nice homes, RV’s to take hunting and fishing, and money to send their kids to the colleges they never attended. While occasionally some were laid off when production slowed down in the winter, the union still paid 75% of their salary and it was nice to have the extra time off around Christmas. All in all, the American dream.
The one event no one ever expected is that one day Greenville Steel Car would turn off the lights, shut the doors of their huge plant, and just walk away. In Greenville that Christmas you could hear the faint echo of mothers in Bethlehem weeping for their children. No matter how secure we feel, we still live in Herod’s world.
The vast majority of our fellow human beings know Herod’s world only too well.
Massive famine exists with no safety net. Political upheaval has generated more refugees and displaced people since the end of WW II. Fear of death based solely on one’s religion, tribe or ethnicity is rampant. A changing climate that kills daily through drought and disease moves inexorably forward while distant politicians argue about its reality. Truth and morality become whatever wealth and power wish them to be.
Jesus tells his disciples in the upper room on their last evening together before his crucifixion: “Peace I leave with you, MY peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
Jesus promises his peace, but he never promises a hassle-free life.
One of these disciples will commit suicide because he couldn’t face the mistake he made, 10 of them were executed in various gruesome ways, and the only one to live a normal lifespan, John, lived out his life in exile. Their lives were filled with fear, contention, strife and physical danger—yet Jesus had given them his peace.
And in just a few hours after promising this peace, Jesus was sweating great drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane and saying, “Father if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” That doesn’t sound very peaceful to me.
So what is this peace that Jesus promises to Herod’s world?
Christmas is about a King who seems so vulnerable to Herod’s power, yet ultimately overcomes Herod’s world. A King who promises peace, but a strange kind of peace: a peace like the window panes in our homes, a thin membrane separating a cold external environment from a warm interior.
Such peace is possible, but it means following a King who offers a peace that can never be constructed from the raw materials this world offers. It’s a peace based on radical trust, on risking everything.
There’s a lot at stake for anyone who dares to follow such a King in Herod’s world.
Advent is a season to face head-on the darkness of Herod’s world, not draw a cozy Christmasy blanket over our heads. The author I quoted earlier puts it well:
Abstaining, for a moment, from the clamor of compulsive jollification, and instead leaning into the reality of human tragedy and of my own need and brokenness, allows my experience of glory at Christmastime to feel not only more emotionally sustainable but also more vivid, vital and cherished.
“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5
Are you troubled about the rising tide of evil all around us? So am I. Do you also sense darkness or brokenness within you? So do I.
Dare to look both kinds of darkness in the eye in these weeks ahead.
Oh Rich! New thoughts to me abound in this lesson. Thank you I don’t tell you often enough what your blogs and letters mean to me! We love you and your family and continue to pray for your ministry. Hope your Advent weeks are full of a closeness with our Abba and Chris be filled with joy with your family!