“Having spent 17 of the
last 20 Christmases in Africa, the wind which blows in a drier hotter season
now feels familiar, and the flashing spastic lights we bought in our capital a
couple years back (our first electrified season) feel appropriately chaotic.
Last year was our first in Kijabe (Kenya), and I remember the church
Christmas pageant which included a band of skinny little camouflage-clad
Kenyan boys as Herod’s soldiers marching in like a rebel resistance army, and
Jesus’ parents fleeing before them like any other refugees. I don’t recall much
focus on this part of the story in America as I grew up. Our plays ended
half-way through Matthew 2, with the gifts of the magi, while the scene was
still serenely beautiful and triumphant.
“The slaughter of innocent
children gives the story a jarring, uncomfortable ending, dangling, unresolved,
and terrible. Rachel weeping for her children, because they are no more .
. .
“We should not have dropped
this part of the Christmas story all these years, because slaughter is the
context of Christmas. The whole story hinges on the presence of rampant
evil. When masses of children are violently killed, it becomes hard to
deny the reality of injustice and suffering, the horrible brokenness of our
world . . .
“On this continent, it
would be absurd to deny the horror and heartache of evil, just as absurd as it
would be to do so in Newtown [CT], or in Bethlehem, when the bloodied bodies of
baby boys were being buried.”
Matthew’s inclusion of
Herod’s atrocity in his Christmas account, powerfully signals that God is not
removed from our human condition. He understands that, as Paul states, “. . .
the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God . .
[for in that day] the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to
decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” After all,
it is He who, in Revelation 21, puts before us the vision of an existence, an
earth, a new earth, in which
there is no more death, sorrow, and, therefore, no more mourning.
So, as Dr. Myhre
acknowledges:
“Evil is real. Innocents
suffer. But the story does not end there . . .
“The birth of the child,
who is God, ushers in a turning point in the story. A foe capable of meeting
evil, and defeating it, disguised and humbled in human flesh. The incarnation
sets in motion a complete reversal of all that is wrong, all that is sorrowful,
all that is painful, and in the course of this battle, a lot of people die. The
baby survives and becomes the man who will refuse to ride against Roman powers
as a King. That is a victory too small, a territory too temporary. This
King will choose a path of suffering, voluntarily taking on all that evil could
throw at him, in his own body, nailed to a tree -- like the teachers at Sandy
Hook who put their bodies in the path of bullets, trying to protect the
children. This King will defeat evil. He will walk out of a tomb so that every
6 and 7-year-old gunned down, every starving baby, and even the Adam Lanzas of
the world, can be redeemed.”
We who are followers of
Jesus, while we look forward to that day in glory with him when mourning will
be no more, must not ignore the path he trod to get there. His mission was a
mission lived out in the real world, to overcome the evil let loose upon the
real world. From first breath to last, Jesus bore the burden of sin and its
evil evidences. Sin caused him to be greeted by the sound of weeping as he came
into the world; he confronted its malevolence as he walked about the highways
and byways; he succumbed to its power as he yielded up his life on the cross.
He did not, however, overcome evil so that we would not have to confront it. He
confronted evil so that we might join him in overcoming it. The call of
Christmas is to pick up the cross and follow him.
This requires us to be more
than passive, secret followers. Jesus did what he did in plain view, and those
who had eyes to see, saw, and were overwhelmed by his love and sacrifice. While
our work will not redeem anyone in any eternal sense, it will serve to expose
others to Jesus and, with his help, push back against the effects of evil in
the world. Dr. Myhre: “. . . it is not so much the power of armies that keeps
evil at bay, but the ordinary acts of courage and kindness that preserve our
world: the community outpouring of love which will heal hearts in Newtown; the
tenacious pushing of a teenage girl who gave birth to a baby; and the steady
painful walk he took towards death; the daily self-sacrifice of his followers
who sweep streets, and teach children, and suture wounds, and defend the
fatherless.” Such actions on the part of his followers celebrate the coming of
the Christ, who came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a
ransom for many.
