Lights in a Bleak Winter

My wife and I went out for a walk one cold and rainy night last week. Halloween was barely past, and Thanksgiving yet to come, but the neighborhood was already ramping up with Christmas spirit. Strings of LED lights blinking bright red and green, inflatable reindeer, and a star or two lit up the darkness, resisting the winter gloom. “Give me all the tacky and garish decorations,” I thought to myself. “We could use a little joy this year.”

They’d have you believe it is the most wonderful time of the year, that the bells of Christmas harken peace, love, and joy for all humankind, but we know better. The raindrops I dodged on that evening spoke to these stormy days through which we are living. Wars rage across the world, and people in our communities are hungry and hurting. Speak to me of glad tidings? I am not so sure I believe it.

The original Christmas story carries its own pain and sorrow. The coda on Bethlehem’s manger is understandably left out of Christmas Eve pageants and TV specials. Visiting Magi were instructed by Herod to betray the baby Jesus, revealing his location so the royal army could swoop in and kill the newborn king. The Wise Men chose otherwise, sneaking away under the cover of night. Herod the King, in his raging, ordered his strike team to descend on the town and kill all children under the age of two. The ancient texts sing a lamentation of disconsolate weeping. Lullay, thou little tiny child.

Murder, intrigue, and infanticide are not the ingredients of a festive Christmas, but they are part of the human story. These shadows of the human experience have a way of breaking through our celebratory veneer, crying out for attention against the onslaught of saccharine cheer. The slaughter of the innocents in the Gospel of Matthew, the destitute Cratchits in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” and the freezing child in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Poor Little Match Girl” cast shadows over our sumptuous holiday feasts.

Two centuries ago, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow spoke to our human situation in “Christmas Bells”: “For hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Yes, we gather every December to sing, to laugh, to exchange gifts, and to feast. All the while, empire rages outside our door.

As with Bethlehem’s aftermath, it is the innocent who suffer. Ukrainian children left homeless by the onslaught of Russian missiles, and villagers in Sudan slaughtered by warring factions fighting for supremacy. Factories on foreign shores are filled with children laboring to make the electronics, toys, and clothes that will shortly be under our Christmas trees. Meanwhile, our neighbors scramble to buy groceries while our leaders throw decadent parties or send themselves into space.

OK, enough of this. To borrow a phrase from Jackson Browne, I have no wish to come between this day and your enjoyment. Life is hard, and a little frivolity and celebration are a necessary balm for our troubled souls. You readers know your own daily struggles, and I don’t mean to steal your joy. Please, deck your halls, bundle your gifts in colorful giftwrap, and sing silly carols while sipping eggnog. I hope I see even more tacky Christmas displays lighting up our neighborhoods.

I wonder, though, as I wander the darkened streets this winter. The story of Christmas is joy and hope, even while enduring deeply troubled times. The child who escaped Bethlehem is a promise that empire will rage but ultimately fall to an unstoppable force of love. The question before us is this: Does our joy and celebration reflect deep hope even in the brokenness of this world? Or is all our partying a masquerade hiding us from reality? Are we masking our pain in the merriment of peppermint mochas, blissfully ignoring the ways of Herod, or are we embracing the promise of joy in willful defiance against the forces of oppression and harm?

Eat, drink, and be merry, my Key Peninsula community. Say a prayer and do something good for those less fortunate. Let us fill our hearts with hope and joy to prepare us for the long, hard work that lies ahead. Merry Christmas, one and all.

Award-winning columnist Dan Whitmarsh is a licensed therapist and pastor of Lakebay Community Church.