Be Not Afraid

There were many times Mary and Joseph could have turned around and given up. Not because the journey was so hard, or the task of birthing the Messiah was too lofty, but because so many times along the way they were met with events that required much courage.

• Mary tells Joseph about the special baby growing inside her womb. Should he go back on his betrothal?
  
  
• Caesar announces a census in everyone’s hometown. Should they travel to Bethlehem, with Mary so pregnant?
  
  
• They arrive in Bethlehem tired and dusty. It might be Joseph’s hometown, but they have nowhere to stay, no friends to help the delivery. How can they go on?
  

But then, the baby is born. And the angels cry out,

Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
(Luke 2:10-11)

Amid the unpleasantness of a strange room, a manger for a bed, and swaddling clothes for newborn garments, a band of shepherds come to worship the newborn King, and all seems to be at peace.

This image is stamped across greeting cards and Christmas carols more than any other. But real-life uncertainties continued for the holy family. In fact, they were just kicking into high gear.

The Wise Men unknowingly informed King Herod about young Jesus when they asked,

“Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. (Matthew 2:2-4)

Instantly, Jesus became a rival, and Herod retaliated by issuing a death sentence for all young boys under two.

Another time where Mary and Joseph could have been paralyzed with fear. But an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and says, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” (Matthew 2:13)

The road to Egypt was long and dangerous. The land, filled with foreign gods and unknown ways. Fear.

Jesus’ whole earthy life was met with contention and antagonism. Opportunities for fear. But Jesus’ time in human form is book-ended with the angels declaring: “Fear Not! Do not be afraid.” I think there’s a message in there for us.

A couple years ago I wrote about A Charlie Brown Christmas, specifically the scene where Linus is reciting from Luke 2. As he gets to the part about the angels, a strange thing happens. You have to really be watching to notice. Linus drops his blanket. The item he kept close for security and possibly even courage—he lets it go.

“Fear not!” said the angels. “Do not be afraid.”

I am really good at living in anxiety and fear. In fact, it’s the part of my character emphasized in the Enneagram.

If Jesus wasn’t God, I imagine he could have met his roadblocks with a similar mind. But instead, Jesus passed through His earthly reign as the Prince of Peace, heralded at the beginning and the end with the words, “be not afraid.”

Sometimes we need narratives like the accounts in Luke and Matthew to show us the truths we’ve been seeking all along. Authors like C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle, and J.R.R. Tolkien knew this. God, the author of life, knows this. We need to hear the angels say to the shepherds, “do not be afraid.” To hear Aslan whisper to Lucy, “courage, dear heart.” Or watch Vicky’s fear wash away as she swims with the dolphins in Grandfather’s cove. And observe Gandalf declare to Theoden, “Not all is dark. Take courage, Lord of the Mark; for better help you will not find. No counsel have I to give to those that despair.”

Fear is a common part of human existence. Jesus knows this because he humbled Himself and become a man. He empathizes with us, helps us, comforts us, loves us. But fear is not the end of the story. The final chapter is yet to come, and it is then that darkness will meet its end.

"The First Night" and Christmas' Pain

Nativity picture books are a wonderful way to tell the story of Jesus’ Advent and birth. But as I read through these beautifully illustrated stories, there is something missing. It is a key component of Advent. And if we aren’t careful, leaving it at the door will rob us of a very important message about Christmas.

In his article, Christmas Doesn’t Ignore Your Pain, David Mathis writes,

The real Christmas does not ignore our pain. When we open the pages of Scripture and turn to that first Christmas, we find, without doubt, that all was not merry and bright. The new glimpses of merriness that do emerge fall against the backdrop of misery and disorder. Those first rays of brightness shone in a land of deep darkness. . .

More significant than Joseph’s or Mary’s pain is the pain and sin and suffering and ruin for which Jesus came. The angel declared to Joseph, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

. . . If God’s people, not to mention the nations, weren’t needy — desperately so — there would have been no Christmas. Christ did not come to put on a show or make a cameo in history. He came to bring life to the dead, to rescue the perishing, to heal the sick, to destroy the works of the devil. For centuries, misery and darkness had been compounding. Only in coming to such a depraved and disfigured world would his arrival signal hope for any real merriment and brightness.

I don’t know about you, but misery and darkness aren’t themes I see in many picture books. It’s often too deep a subject for young readers’ blossoming minds and hearts. Yet, as I wrote about last Blue Christmas (December 21), we need the darkness to more fully see the light. A story is the most powerful when the protagonist has to overcome a great obstacle or challenge. So why are all these nativity stories so docile and quiet?

Today’s picture book is a perfect example of this. B.G. Hennessy’s The First Night, illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher is almost pure Nativity fact. No extraneous details or additional animals are there to help tell the story. It’s simple and beautiful. But after reading Mathis’ article, it struck me how much it was devoid of pain.

But I don’t really think it is. The author opens the book with John 1:14: "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Maybe it’s that grace and truth tend to shine brighter than the pain. The pain of Mary, of Joseph, of a waiting nation, of an over-crowded Bethlehem, of a baby who would grow up and suffer and die for us, the ones desperately in need of God’s presence among us. He lived a painful and difficult life, yet flowing through His veins was a sustaining joy that could not be quenched, even by death.

Mathis continues,

The great joy the angels announced at that first Christmas can sustain us as well. Christmas doesn’t ignore our many pains; neither does it bid us wallow in them. Christmas takes them seriously, more seriously than any secular celebration can, and reminds us that our God has seen our pain and heard our cries for help and he himself has come to deliver us.

 The last few pages of The First Night read,

There was a mother, a father, and a baby.

The baby lay on a bed made of hay.

The baby was seeing this world for the first time.

He saw the swaying lantern, the donkey, and the woolly lamb.

He felt the night air,

his soft blanket,

his mother’s arms,

his father’s hands.

And in that warm, dark stable

His life began.

The scene looks so serene. But it was not devoid of darkness. That is where God intended for Jesus' life to begin. With this humble beginning in a dreary and broken world, He grew up to become our Light of Life.

We cannot forget that Christmas includes our pain. Without it, there would be no reason for Jesus to come at all.

Blue Christmas: "I Needed Darkness as Much As I Needed Light"

Tonight is the longest night of the year. In some traditions, today is called Blue Christmas.

This evening, as in years past, I attended a service at my friends’ house. We sang, read, prayed. It was a time to mourn he sufferings of the world; a time to acknowledge the darkness; a time to ask God for His mercy in new and brilliant ways.

Because only when there is darkness can we truly see how radiant the Light really is.

Episcopal priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor writes,

“I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.”
(from Learning to Walk in the Dark).

This metaphors of darkness and light are repeated many times in Scripture. They chart our course from Creation until Christ’s final return. I quoted this passage during the first week of Advent, but it bears repeating:

The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
    on them has light shone.

(Isaiah 9:2)

Isaiah 9 is one of the best messianic passages contrasting dark and light. It shows us, just like Taylor’s quote, how very important the darkness is in God’s plan for humanity. We often pray for the darkness to go away, but that’s not the way God answered Israel’s cries when He decided to send a Savior. As the gospel of John, it says God sent Jesus as the Light of Life:

“The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:9-13).

That was the will of God. He did not miraculously take away the evil and darkness of the world, the suffering of Israel under the hand of the Romans, or the centuries of persecution. He sent a Man so full of Light that the “darkness could not overcome it” (John 1:5b).

The famous passage from Isaiah 9 ends with this,

“Of the increase of his government and of peace
    there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
    to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
    from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this."

(Isaiah 9:7)

The zeal of the Lord will do this. Let us not forget God’s zealous plan of salvation. Often it calls us to trust in His mysterious plan. But as we read the Christmas story, we are blessed with a glimpse of that Light coming down. And making all the difference.

Blue Christmas

Today was the shortest day of year. Tonight is the longest night. Tomorrow, we will have one more minute of day light. How easy it is to take  light for granted, until that day we celebrate the mere moments of brightness given back to us, and we remember just how powerful the Light is.

This evening, like the past three years, I attended a Blue Christmas service. It was a time to reflect and pray for the broken things of this world. And also a time to proclaim,

The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5).

We began the evening with a reading of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. It really isn’t an Advent or Christmas passage, but it fits so well, and it’s something my heart needed to hear:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

The story of Christ’s birth is not a stationary story. It is made up of so many opposing moments, many of which hold immense pain and suffering, but which God, in His wisdom, has brought together to form the history of His people, Israel. Just as Advent is a time to celebrate Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love, it is also a time when we can do just the opposite. We can climb into the pain with those who are hurting; kneel beside those who are weeping; scream at the injustice of it all; question God’s timing . . . and then stand up, re-read the message of the prophets, and look Heaven-ward with expectation.

We can trace Christ’s lineage from its humble, broken, weary beginnings, and see the residue of God’s faithful plan in every smooth and rugged crevice.

That’s when we know: we have all walked in deep darkness, but on us, a great Light has shined.