‘There’s a world outside your window, and it’s a world of dread and fear’ – Band Aid
‘Christmas is a time for positive thoughts. So be positive in all you say and do this season.’ So said the article written by a prominent Evangelical Christian. Out of context it sounds like good advice, a ‘count your blessings’ and ‘focus on the joys of the season’ sort of thing. I suppose he has a point. There is so much to celebrate at Christmastime. It would be a shame to miss out by thinking gloomy thoughts. But the writer had an agenda. His tone and tenor suggested that his real purpose was to silence anyone from speaking out against the cruelty and corruption of the Trump Administration. It was basically a partisan piece designed to keep resisters quiet. You know, stop pointing out that things are wrong and that people are getting hurt. It’s ruining everyone’s good time, harshing the holiday buzz. Just back off and allow everyone to bask in the hope, joy, love, and peace that is available during the season of Advent.
That’s the kind of thing only a privileged, comfortable person could say these days. For in fact, not everyone feels hope, joy, love, and peace this year. Many are struggling to find hope, experiencing deep sorrow, battling hate, and living with a deep sense of unease. The 1984 classic ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to enlighten a languid western world to the reality of famine in Africa (a far worse situation than what we currently face to be sure), speaks well to many in America today:
In our world of plenty, you can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world at Christmastime.
But say a prayer – pray for the other ones –
At Christmastime, it’s hard, but while you’re having fun,
There’s a world outside your window, and it’s a world of dread and fear.
Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears.
And the Christmas bells that ring there, are the clanging chimes of doom.
Well tonight, thank God it’s them, instead of you.
I was reminded of this world outside our windows while watching the NETFLIX series, Living Undocumented. It tells stories of families victimized by Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy. The first episode includes the story of a man separated from his wife, about to be separated from his son, as our government works to deport them both. The closing scene shows the father praying with his immigration attorney, hoping against all hope for a miracle. How can I ‘just think positive thoughts’ knowing that my brother in Christ – and he is but one of thousands – weeps and prays for a miracle to save his family from a policy that a majority of white Christians in America either support or simply choose not to think about?
Then I think of the refugees, people who have fled war, terror, and starvation, seeking asylum in the United States, the land that once welcomed the ‘tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ A couple of months ago, America recorded the first month in ages in which it resettled a total of zero refugees. I imagine these people living in tents, waiting for a miracle, realizing that there will not be one in time for Christmas. Or maybe ever.
I think of an African-American community, mourning the death of yet another son, a young man gunned down because the color of his skin was considered a threat to someone’s existence. I imagine this community listening to the bitter rhetoric of a President aggressively seeking to maintain the dominance of whiteness in America, fueling minds that hate, proclaiming, essentially, that black lives do not matter. I imagine families in that community fearfully wondering whether the next son gunned down will be their own.
Geldof and Ure were right: there is indeed a world outside our windows, and it’s a world of dread and fear.
I don’t mean to be depressing though. Because I believe that even in the midst of such a world, there is hope – and joy and love and peace. Why? Because I believe in Christmas. Christmas gives us reason to believe in all of those positive things even in the midst of negative realities. Not by ignoring those realities, but by realizing that something has been and can be done about them. But in order for hope to rise, we need to understand Christmas rightly.
Christmas isn’t the story of having fun and thinking positive thoughts while ignoring the painful realities of the world. Christmas is the story of a God who looked outside the window of heaven, saw the pain and peril of His people, and did something. The world at the time was brutal. Caesar was King, and his legions terrorized the world. Quite frankly, the actions of the Romans toward conquered peoples makes Trump seem like a lightweight. The opening scenes of The Nativity Story (which I heartily recommend you watch this Christmas season) depict the way in which the Romans cruelly oppressed the Jewish people, taking away their livelihoods, kidnapping their daughters to work off their debts. Resistance was not tolerated, and those who dared oppose Rome suffered the sword or the cross. It was, indeed, a world of dread and fear.
God saw all of this, and did two things. First, he spoke. The God who spoke creation into existence spoke what Michael Card calls, ‘one final, perfect word:’ Incarnation. Second, he acted. He acted on His word, entering into the suffering of His people. God did not simply bask in the positive glow of heaven. He spoke and acted concretely in the lives of the oppressed.
You can see this clearly in the Christmas story. God spoke to Zechariah, bringing hope to an old man and his wife by giving them a son. And not just any son, but the son who was to prepare the way for God’s Messiah. Not everyone understands this, but that was a revolutionary and subversive act, an overt challenge to the oppressive status quo. God was sending his Anointed to set the world to rights, to ‘rescue His people from their enemies,’ as Zechariah put it (See, Luke 1:74). God was not quiet in the face of oppression. He spoke and acted against it.
This is even clearer in the case of Mary. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, she sang of the mystery and wonder that was happening to her by singing of scattering the proud and mighty, bringing down princes from their thrones, and sending the rich away empty as the poor and hungry were lifted up (See, Luke 1:46-55). This is the language of revolution. A warning shot across the bow of the powers that be. An announcement that a new day was coming. Neither God nor Mary were silent in the face of oppression. They spoke and acted to make things right, even if their words made those in power feel uncomfortable.
You can read the rest of the Christmas story on your own. But the bottom line is that through it all, in the invitation to lowly shepherds, in the fulfillment of Simeon and Anna’s hopes, and most especially in the lowly birth of Jesus, we see God speaking and acting to challenge the status quo by acknowledging the suffering of his people, not ignoring it, but entering into and becoming a part of it.
And therein lies the message for those who follow Jesus today. In a world where outside our windows lie people who lack hope, love, joy, and peace, a world of dread and fear, where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears, where the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom, the thing to do is NOT to simply bask in the warm glow of Christmas and thank God it’s them instead of you. The thing to do is to speak. The thing to do is to act. The thing to do is to enter the suffering around you and become part of it.
That’s what God did at Christmastime.
It’s what he still does.
It would be a sin for those who follow him to do anything less.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Brent