WWJD?

 Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent away and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its environs, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the magi. Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted, because they were no more.’ Matthew 2:16-18

Sometimes I think about the babies – all those thousands of babies, murdered in the hunt for one. I wonder if Mary thought about them, if she dreamed about them, if she heard the cries of their mothers in her sleep. I wonder if she wept tears of grief over them, felt guilt, struggled, choked on her first solid bite of broken.

I wonder if she thought of those innocent babies when she kissed Jesus on the head at night and tucked him in – if she pondered in her heart that they were dead because she chose to hide him. They were dead because he had to live – because it was not his time to die.

From the time you lose your innocence, Christmas is bitter-sweet. Sometimes Christmas feels like an act of faith – a declaration of hope, rather than an expression of any reality. I have to make it happen. I have to choose it. I keep waiting for a perfect Christmas – a Christmas when I won’t feel the dull ache of absence, when I won’t be acutely aware of the brokenness of family, when I won’t feel guilt over the richness of the blessings I am able to wrap my arms around. I keep waiting for a Christmas when all I truly have to think about is bright bows and glimmer and making my bathroom look festive – but for me that Christmas never comes. I keep waiting for all to be calm, all to be bright – for that peaceful, easy feeling.

I am afraid that, in so many ways, I have completely missed the point. It is not that there is now peace on earth – it is that Peace is now on the earth. Peace has entered in to our world of loss and pain and sorrow. God has come to us, has given Himself to us, and has allowed Himself to be broken with us. He has been broken for us. God has been broken – the Trinity has been split apart, and God now shares with us our longing to be whole.

I don’t think we’re supposed to pretend that there aren’t people missing, when there clearly are. I don’t think we’re supposed to put out of our minds that there are broken, rotted people who are willing to kill babies as they hunt what their soul is looking for. I think we’re supposed to taste the bitter – feel it wrapped around the joy, like paper packaging. I think we’re supposed to hold the gift of life in our hands, and hunger and ache and long for our redemption to be revealed.

I think we are supposed to understand that peace will never come to us without deep, unfathomable loss – because peace is right there in the midst of it. That is where we find it. That is why it has come. It is our humanity that is the channel for Peace – God with us, in the form of brokenness, in the form of the Christ child.

Do not thank God that it was someone else’s child, not yours.

Love your neighbour as yourself.

Mourn with those who mourn, and refuse to be comforted.

Be filled with the Spirit of God.

Do not pray for peace – be its instrument.