“We Cannot Wait Till the World is Sane”

We read the Christmas story out at the jail yesterday. Matthew’s version, all the way through. We read about Mary and Joseph angelic visitations and prophecies fulfilled and Magi from the east bearing strange gifts. We read about a mad king’s maniacal decree, about the slaughter of innocent baby boys, about the Holy Child of Bethlehem being hunted from the day he was born. I had taped images from William Kurelek’s A Northern Nativity on the wall throughout the chapel and invited the guys wander around looking at them while I read. I wanted the Nativity to somehow migrate from words on a page or sanitized religious images to their world, to them, to us.

We sat in a circle afterward and talked about the story, the images, the idea that the Christ child does not come to a sanitized world where things are nicely arranged and ordered. He descends into the muck and the mire, to a world “in sin and error pining,” as the song goes. Madeleine L’Engle’s “First Coming” puts it poetically and poignantly:

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine.

He did not wait till hearts were pure.
In joy he came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

Our hour was almost up, and I was preparing to pray. “Anything else anyone would like to share,” I said, secretly hoping there wasn’t. It’s been a long December, and I was feeling weary of all the ways in which this world of ours “doesn’t mesh.” One young man tentatively put his hand up. “Those babies that were killed by Herod… It made me think.” He paused, swallowed hard. “About ten years ago, I lost baby twins. Two months old…”

The room, as it always does when such brutal things are shared, fell deathly silent. All the pontificating and posturing stops. Heads perhaps bowed in resignation or boredom snap forward, attentive. The clock on the wall slows down. I mumbled some pitifully inadequate words about being “so very sorry.” A few other guys offered similar words of comfort or recognition or solidarity or… well, God knows what one ought to say.

He went on, “When it happened, I was so angry at God. I hated God for doing this to me, for making me bury these babies (I later learned that he dug the holes with his own hands out on the reserve). But over time, I learned how to forgive. And I forgave even God.” He had tears in his eyes at this point, as did many of the other guys. “I have three beautiful kids now, and I know my boys are looking down on me, watching over me. I’ve come to the point where I can even thank God for what he has done in my life through this hard thing.”

Not for the first time, we had our lesson and it was a powerful one indeed.

I know a lot of people who are going through hard things this Christmas. The word “hard” often doesn’t seem up to the task of describing the reality. This is true of every Christmas, of course. It has been true of every Christmas since the first one and will be true until Christ comes again in glory. And yet, we are summoned to offer our praise, nonetheless. To rehearse our hope, nonetheless. To sing out our joy, nonetheless. To forgive (our neighbours, certainly, and perhaps even God), nonetheless. To tell this wild, unruly, beautiful story, nonetheless.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

——

The image above is taken from William Kurelek’s A Northern Nativity.