What Gives Life Meaning?

When we picture the arrival of the wise men, we have a tendency to imagine Jesus lying in the manger, bathed in a soft light, with Mary and Joseph close by as three men in crowns and gold trimmed gowns kneel to offer him their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. We know that Jesus was probably closer to 18 months old, and that he was likely toddling around with Mary in the house while Joseph worked. We know that the magi were likely astronomers rather than kings and surely didn’t travel in crowns and gowns. We know that there were three gifts, and nowhere are we told how many men were travelling to bring them. But we have a picture in our mind’s eye that is warm and safe, and, well, we don’t want another picture. Except that we need another picture.

Rev. James T. Dennison’s poem, “the other night in Bethlehem” describes the scene just days after the magi’s visit.

There was another night in Bethlehem. No angel chorus was heard that evening. No Gloria in excelsis. The air that night was rent with shrieks-shrieks and cries; sobs and tears. A hellish horde had done the bidding – the bidding of a paranoid devil. These thugs search – not for life – but to deal out death. And newborn babes lie bundled in grave cloths – laid to rest – cradled in fresh-turned earth. None to save them; so that the streets of Bethlehem echo – Miserere, miserere!

We don’t want to imagine mothers huddled in caves in the hillside trying to keep their babies from crying. We don’t want to imagine a house to house search that leaves babies lying dead on the floor in its wake. We don’t want to imagine a ruler so paranoid that he killed his own beloved wife because he thought she was scheming against him, so ego-centric that as he was dying he gave orders that all of the citizens of Jericho should be killed so that people would be weeping at the time of his funeral, so insecure that he killed anyone who might threaten his throne, including every child under 2 in and around Bethlehem.

But if we delete the story of Herod from the story of Jesus’ birth, if we remember the journey to Bethlehem but not the hightail bolt to Egypt, we might imagine that Mary and Joseph returned home from Bethlehem and Jesus grew up a well-fed curious child at the feet of his carpenter father, listening to the men tell stories on the lap of his grandfather, and peacefully enjoying an idyllic childhood.

N.T. Wright warns against thoughts of peaceful Christmas scenes, “Before the Prince of Peace had learned to walk and talk, he was a homeless refugee with a price on his head.” And this is Good News! We need this picture of Jesus.
Even when things are darkest, even when Joseph is faced with the harsh reality that best option for his family was taking his family back to Egypt where his people had been slaves, not knowing how they would be treated, but that it was the only chance they had, Scripture was being fulfilled. We cannot delete the story of Herod from the story of Jesus’ birth because the hightail bolt to Egypt, a place no Israelite ever wanted to go again, tells us that Emmanuel, God-with-us, didn’t come to have a comfortable life, didn’t come to a life that was privileged, didn’t come to a life that was untouched by injustice and violence – Jesus, God-with-us, came to be with us where the pain is, to know the brokenness of this world, to experience the powers of darkness. When life seems to be filled with hurt and fear and loss, we need this picture – that is why we must remember.

Rev. Suzanne Guthrie reflects that when you take the story of Jesus birth out of its “grim contexts in order to make it pretty” it “defeats the purpose of the Incarnation.” She says, “Jesus enters a real world, like ours, where children are poor, malnourished, enslaved, and poisoned by greed’s numbing exploitations.”

We come to the table of grace, not because it is a table prepared for us by a Lord who doesn’t understand us, or who hasn’t experienced the kind of darkness we know in our lives, but to remember it is prepared by Jesus who does understand us and who has experienced the kind of darkness we know in our lives.

Here we are invited to eat the bread of life and drink the cup of salvation that are given to us by Jesus’ own sacrifice. Here we remember that the Light has come and the darkness cannot overcome it. Here we remember that God is with us and is at work in our world through us.