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A Child’s Christmas In America – 2001

  Five thousand wreaths form zeros
on five thousand doors. Fifteen
thousand children plunged into midnight . We
in the Inn , nibble fruitcake, drink egg nog,
offer toasts to deliverance. They remain
exiled in the stable of sorrow.                       Perhaps
workers will appear, driven by unearthly music,
to offer homage to the thousands who sacrificed.     Perhaps
wisdom will free children from the thousands of griefs.    Perhaps
a swaddled infant can turn this darkness
into blessing.

Gordon Forbes

Just before he died of cancer, the British playwright Dennis Potter was asked what impact his imminent death had on his commitment to religion. His answer was: "For me religion has always been the wound, never the bandage." I think his comment illuminates a wide spread view of the meaning of religion; that is, as some system designed to distribute good cheer and apply band-aids to human suffering. It is the view that the success of our faith can be measured by how good we feel and how successfully we have pushed pain out of the picture. At Christmas, this view is embodied in the person of Santa Claus.

But as Gordon’s poem reminds us, especially this Christmas, any true message about the love of God has to mean something in the midst of human suffering. Grace doesn’t erase pain. Grace doesn’t come in spite of pain. Grace comes through and in the midst of pain. You can’t have Easter without the cross of crucifixion. And that goes for Christmas as well. This Christmas the list of those crucified on the cross of suffering is long: the innocent victims of 9/11 and their loved ones, those of Middle Eastern background who suffer suspicion and imprisonment here, the victims of hate and violence in Israel and the West Bank, the poor and wretched of this earth. And we in America suffer as we struggle to understand why there is such a gulf between the rich and poor of this world, and to understand the depth of such seemingly blind rage directed at us.

We routinely associate Christmas joy with a kind of lilting, nostalgic, happiness. But this Christmas in particular, Santa can only take us so far. The events of 9/11 demand that we look at the pain, and search the Christmas story for meaning. So I would like to deal briefly with two painful elements related to the birth of Jesus as we find them in Matthew’s Gospel.

First, there is Joseph. Matthew gives us the story from the viewpoint of Mary’s betrothed. Matthew makes it clear that Joseph was an entirely decent man determined to do the kind and right thing. He and Mary had observed all the proper kinds of behavior during their engagement. It would be hard to overestimate the shame and embarrassment he must have felt when he learned she was pregnant. There surely must have been a profound sense of personal betrayal. How does it feel when someone you have trusted deeply, even opened your heart to in great vulnerability, betrays that love and trust? That results in pain of the most disorienting kind. Whether he believed Mary’s explanation or not, he has little choice but to end the engagement. To his credit, even hurt as he is, he chooses to do this in such a way as to minimize the shame involved to Mary and himself. Then an angel in a dream explains to Joseph that she is with child by the Holy Spirit. All this is the result of God’s grace. This word comes to everyone’s great relief. But even so, what about the pain that Joseph felt? Even with the angel’s words, is it so easily forgot? Joseph as a kind and righteous man lived a life informed by custom and conscience in the best sense. Yet he was made to suffer. Perhaps God could have gone about this differently, but we are left, I think, with the conclusion that there was no way for God to have entered this world in the baby Jesus, without bringing a measure of pain – and it was innocent Joseph who suffered, not because he was bad, but because he was good.

I believe we find the same spiritual dynamic in the story of Herod’s slaughter of the innocent children of Bethlehem. To say that this episode in the Christmas story is traditionally downplayed would be an understatement. It tends to be ignored most of the time. It is understandable that we would not want to spoil our Christmas cheer and message of peace and good will, with a story of extreme violence. Yet there it is. And it is very disturbing. It is our friends, the wise men, who first tell King Herod that they have come to find the Messiah. Seeing this Messiah as a threat to his political power, Herod acts to defend himself. Even though he knows that there is only one baby boy to be worried about, he decides to kill them all just to be on the safe side. Bloody and tyrannical though it may be, there is a logic to his ruthless behavior. The end of retaining power justifies the means of murder. Biblical scholars remind us that this story parallels the Pharaoh’s threat to the life of baby Moses. And indeed Herod’s slaughter of the innocents may never have actually happened. But the message is still powerful and applies today. The innocents who died at the Twin Towers, at the Pentagon, and on the four airplanes, are like those innocents. The terrorist organizers decided that these people were all enemies. But I have also found myself thinking about this story in following the plight of the hundreds of men of middle-eastern descent who have been retained by our government in the wake of 9/11. We are all familiar with the rationale. Yes, each was in violation of the law in some way or another. Yes, lawyers were available for them and many have now been released. And let me say that if such arrests in fact did foil some other terrorist plot that was in the works, I would be hard put to complain much. But the fact remains that certainly many people innocent of major crime lost their freedom, so that our freedom could be protected. History teaches that the cause of freedom is rarely advanced when innocent people lose their freedom.

As in the case of Joseph, we are left with the uncomfortable conclusion that had God not come into the world as the babe at Bethlehem, those hundreds of innocent children would not have died, and their families would not be left grieving. What does this all mean? I don’t really know. I don’t know that it can be explained even. But somehow it shows that the grace of God and the suffering of innocent people are connected somehow.

We are all been aware of how different this Christmas feels. What does it mean to celebrate the coming of God’s love into the world in a time of such grief and sorrow, as well as the pain of just being so confused about what is happening in the world? Santa’s superficial cheer and the short-lived delights of consumerism probably leave us more depressed than ever. We need a deeper understanding of Christmas and its celebration. In closing let me suggest how I see Christmas this year.

First of all, we have to take this terrible suffering into account. Like the personal emotional pain of Joseph and the horror of the slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem, it just can’t be ignored. It is reality. Christmas can’t simply be a frenzy of "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may all die in a terrorist attack." Such suffering and such danger is there. But such suffering cannot be allowed to dominate our hearts. Pain cannot be denied. But pain cannot be allowed to rule, to have the last word. What I believe is that the acknowledgment of the universality of human suffering is at the very heart of the Christmas message. God’s love and grace come into a world of terrible pain. God’s love and grace come into the world through pain (the meaning of the cross). And the consequences of God’s love and grace coming into the world may mean more pain. As the playwright I quoted earlier suggested, religion is more about the wound than the bandage.

The Christmas message is that pain can be the means of human transformation. Pain is not just something that happens to the unfortunate few, and to us if we are among the unlucky. Pain is not just a corner of our lives we would rather not look into. Pain is the hole at the very center of each of our souls. If so, what do you do with that "hole in the soul?" You don’t ignore it because that is impossible. You don’t put a band-aid over it, because that won’t work. You don’t try and plaster it over with more and more religion. That leads to hate and self-righteousness. But, on the other hand, you don’t let yourself be consumed by it. You don’t fall into it, which is to sink into despair. What then do you do? You just look at it. You look into it. You look through the hole in the soul. This is where the angel’s words are so important. In season and out of season, God says simply: "Fear not. I will be with you." Be strong, but let this strength rise out of the courage to accept your weakness. Look into the pain. Live into it. Don’t be afraid. Feel God’s strength. You will not be alone. And you will be transformed.

Many people speak of being deeply moved by visiting Ground Zero in New York City. What is Ground Zero but a hole, a crater? It is a place where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center used to be. Now it is smoldering wreckage and the residue of obliterated offices and shattered human remains. Yet it has been so important for police and fire fighters to be there to plumb the depths, for people to look into it. I believe that the urgent need to do this is not just to recover what remains can be recovered as important as that it. It is also a symbolic journey of spiritual healing. At some level those workers and those visitors know that it is very important spiritually to simply look into that chaos, to look into the hole of loss and suffering and helplessness, and to trust.

Can you do that for yourself this sad Christmas? Can you look with courage into the chaos and emptiness of the hole in our soul and your soul? Look into the pain you have felt since 9/11. But also look into the pain you have felt for a long, long time. Just look there – into your grief, your sorrow, your disappointments, your hurts. Don’t deny they are there. You’ve had a lifetime of them. Look. And don’t be afraid that they will engulf you, either. Don’t be afraid. And let God with you. And all will be well. AMEN.

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