Christmas detractors have often pointed out that Jesus was most likely born in June and not in December. Often these detractors go on to point out that the inclusion of the tree and a few other factors make clear that the celebration of Christmas looks incriminatingly similar to pagan rituals which take place during the same season. I happen to not care the least bit, to be honest, if the Christmas celebration has been shaped by these things. I think there is something deeply right about the celebration of Jesus birth at this, the darkest time of year, rather than in June, when shadows are fewer and nights shorter.
Just two days before Christmas, December 23rd, I was at the memorial service for a friend of mine’s son, Ezekiel. Ezekiel was only 26 days old. He had been born several weeks premature and had, for the almost-month of his life defied mathematical odds and medical expectations. His survival was considered miraculous, as is often the way we see our survival of the weak when set against the cold, statistical reality of the medical world. Then, late last week, Ezekiel died.
And so I find my standing graveside, playing “It Is Well With My Soul;” the officiating pastor reading scriptures associated with the celebration of Christmas … “Unto us a child is born” and then continuing .. “From D___ and M___ (the young couple) one was taken taken away…”
In the light of the story we are more familiar with; the story that, for the hundred or so of those who have gathered here to mourn, is in front of our faces, resting in a casket small enough to be held in one arm… can we celebrate the Story that marks this Season? A story that claims something new has been introduced to the world which will not be undone by time and eventually by death like everything else? A story in which death itself is only a part; a character, a transition? Can we believe such a story when the odds, our expectations and our very experience lead us to see only how long the shadows have grown and how deep the night is? We hope.
We hope because we choose to; We hope because we must; We hope because despair is the enemy, even if it is death that haunts us; We hope because some among us lack the strength to do so for themselves; We hope because to do otherwise is to cease being human in it’s grandest sense: in which case we defy and seek to disappoint the dreary expectations of a world that strives to make sense of its own senselessness by eliminating hope altogether; we hope for a cure for cancer; we hope for the abolition of slavery; we hope for the end of extreme poverty.. And again NOT because the evidence of these things is already present but because it is not… and because it is hope for these things that keeps our hearts beating during a season when survival is victory enough.
This is why I find it so fitting that we celebrate the Story the birth of Life Itself at the darkest point of the darkest season rather than during the long, light hours of summer. Because it is here that we need it most.
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Justin -
wow… Thanks for this man. What a great perspective.
Christmas is a sad time for some people out there who have lost loved ones, and yet what we need most during our sad times is to cling to the baby who brings us hope.
Thank you.