A long night's journey into Christmas

If you think about it, Christmas comes at a strange time of the year. We celebrate the birth of Jesus not in the spring, a time in which the trees are sprouting their leaves and the warmth of the sun is once again bringing new life into the world, but at the beginning of winter, when the days are at their shortest and the depth of winter is looming.

Maybe that’s by design, because whatever the actual date of his birth, it took place at a time that was a kind of winter for God’s people who groaned under the yoke of a cruel and powerful empire, in a time in which violence was the order of the day and most of humanity was mired in suffering and want. Into this “winter,” Jesus’s birth brought with it the good news that even in the most difficult of times, God is at work in the world to redeem what is broken, his infinite love creating new hope and new life in the face of suffering and even death.

“Behold,” said the angel on that dark night long ago, “I bring you tidings of great joy that shall be for all people, “telling those with ears to hear that God’s great gift of love was and is, not only for Jews or for gentiles, not only for those who attend the “right” church or are lucky enough to be born in the “right” time or place, but for everyone, especially those on the margins, those who are considered among the least of these, those who are considered the “other.” And so, in the person of a helpless infant, born of an unwed teenaged refugee in a stable, God offered his struggling people a path through the long cold night that was warmed by love and lit by the light of his grace.

And so, in this time of winter, when it may seem to many of us that humanity’s struggle with its demons of poverty, of fear and prejudice and violence is as much in evidence as it ever was, Christmas brings with it the knowledge that now, like then, God is at work in the world, calling on us as his people to be bearers of the light of his love to all of God’s creation and her creatures.

We, his disciples in particular are called to be his hands and his heart in the world, reaching out in grace to all of his struggling people, especially those who don’t look, speak, love or worship like us, so that we may journey together, side by side through the long night of winter toward God’s promise of the coming spring. Merry Christmas!

The Rev. Mark Lukens is the pastor of the Bethany Congregational Church in East Rockaway.