Christmas and life in the rubble

Jesus in the rubble. This is what a Lutheran Church in the West Bank City of Bethlehem displayed as their 2023 crèche scene. Vivid, raw, contemporary, and politically subversive.

It serves as an important corrective to the naïve presumption that we must always be happy at Christmas. We generally believe that no greater tragedy can befall us than to lose a loved one or suffer some national calamity on Christmas Day. But faith sees beyond the tragedies of life.

Faith looks carefully at the stories of Jesus and there, in the gospels, we always see the dark looming. An insecure and violent Herod did not want to lose power, so he slaughtered all babies two years old and under. At the heart of Christmas is also sorrow – “and a sword shall pierce your own soul too so that the secrets thoughts of many may be laid bare” (Lk 2:35).

But that dark sorrow is absorbed into a much greater light, the light of the Word made flesh that has come into the world. It is okay then if we cannot sum up the courage to be happy on Christmas Day because of death in the family, loss of employment, a broken marriage, a depression that sprung from nowhere or the unexpected horror of violence.

St John in his gospel of Christmas Day reminds us of the dark forces of this world: “A light shines in the dark (the rubble) and the darkness did not overpower” (Jn 1:5).

The point of Christmas is the Light is not overpowered. St John says this in hindsight. He has the Resurrection in mind. Christmas celebrates the Light coming; Easter celebrates the Light’s victory.

People of deep faith celebrate this. They face the trauma of their misfortune, but they remember the good times. They take a drink in memory of the person departed, recall the fond memories, never lose sight of what used to be and hope for better days to come.

But we think of people of faith in more harrowing circumstances too, those who have lost loved ones in war – Gaza, Israel, Ukraine, Russia, terrorist bombings. War is never finally conquered by war – World War I inevitably led to World War II. War is won through a higher reach for peace through hope.

The dreadful day of vengeance to come in the Bible appeared in a helpless babe in Bethlehem.

We too do a disservice to our ancestors when we give up in the face of tragedy. In the bowels of slavery and indentureship, they knew what it was to hope, to see the light on the horizon mocking the dark.

Because of their strength of faith, we are here. They learnt the secret of allowing the Infant Babe to be born in their hearts.

The late Black Stalin harboured this hope when he sang: “Better days are coming”. Let us then see the Christ Child amidst the rubble of our personal, national, and regional lives; amidst what seems like an impasse without resolution between Venezuela and Guyana, and ceaseless violence in Haiti.

In this milieu, St John of the Cross says the Virgin is walking down the road pregnant. Let us then take her hand and in the rubble of our present circumstances, give birth to Jesus.