The Light Shines in the Darkness

I t gets cold in Bethlehem.

Even in our own time of global warming, it is down in the low 40s there today, almost as cold in the original Bethlehem as it is in freezing Bethlehem, Pa. “No room at the inn” can be serious business when it is cold out: We had a cold snap a couple of years ago that killed 21 people in the United States, not only the old and the frail but also an 18-year-old college student. We do not heat our homes mainly with fire — we have a whole apparatus of technological marvels to throw at the problem of cold. But it still kills us.

Today, we celebrate the Incarnation, a word that shares a root with carnifex, meaning “butcher” or “executioner.” The root word means both “meat” and “flesh” — and which is which depends very strongly on one’s point of view. As we celebrate the Incarnation, it is worth keeping in mind that the flesh God took on for His inscrutable purpose is fragile stuff: too hot, too cold, a few days without water, a little virus, a good blow to the head — our bodies are not made of stuff that is meant to last.

Why take on that weakness? I do not know the answer and am not sure the answer is truly knowable; but if there is an answer, it has something to do with the value of that flesh, with human life as it is lived, in the flesh, in this world, rather than the life of the spirit in eternity. Presumably, an omnipotent God could have found a more direct and less messy way of doing His business than entering the squalid flow of human history as an incontinent baby in a manger in a desert backwater at the edge of a savage empire. It must be that He sees something in us that we do not.

Maybe we should try looking — and listening.

Have you seen a baby in the early stages of growth on an ultrasound? Not yet the size of my thumb, but everything is there: little hands, little feet, little face, little heart beating, visible through a fragile little chest, a little gossamer person. At only a few weeks, a man in motion! Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zachariah — none of them ever saw anything like that. But none of them had to. When Mary greets Elizabeth, the older woman is startled: “The baby in my womb” — known to history as John the Baptist — “leaped for joy,” she reports. Mary, a teenage girl, understands some of what this means. As she does with so much of the unfathomable news that comes her way, she keeps it close and “ponders it in her heart.”

Except when she doesn’t:

My soul doth magnify the Lord.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.

For he hath regarded: the lowliness of his handmaiden: For behold, from henceforth: all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath magnified me: and holy is his Name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him: throughout all generations.

He hath shewed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek.

He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel:

As he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed forever.

Mary may be a young girl in a terrible situation — that unexplained pregnancy could have ended very badly for her — and she probably can’t read or write, and probably doesn’t know what the world is like beyond whatever is twelve villages over, but, in this moment, she understands, as a mother, what is going on. And she shows more moral sophistication than we might expect in our time from a university professor or a senator. There is no equivocation in Mary — there is no room for it.

Herod knew what was going on, too. Or he knew what a man like him needed to know, at least. He knew because Mary told him, told the world, that One was coming to “put down the mighty from their thrones.” Herod responded as powerful men of that kind usually do. For those with power, everything must be made to serve power. All flesh is meat to the state.

Do you think Herod would have done differently if he had had to personally watch the slaughter of the Innocents? Do you think he would have done differently if he had had to do the butchering himself, as Carnifex Rex? I don’t think he would have behaved any differently. Why would he? We don’t.

“Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” It is cold outside when it happens. Cold and dark. The family is far from home, and would much rather be home, but the state has its demands, too, and these cannot be resisted, even if that means sleeping among the animals. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Magi show up with their signifying gifts: gold, because he is a king; incense, because he is a priest; myrrh, because he will be given over to the butchers. Does Mary understand that? That the flesh of the little infant in her arms will one day be made to absorb all of the cruelty and horror that mankind has to offer, so that mankind might escape being damned by it even as we choke on it? She will understand, eventually — God spares her nothing. “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Oh, but the darkness keeps trying. And so we celebrate Christmas with light: lights on the trees, lights on our houses, lights on the tables, candles in the church, fire in the fireplace. We look to the happiness of the children. Of course it still is the case that, for too many, there’s no room at the inn, no home, no family, no friends. It is never enough, of course, never sufficient — not considering the Gift we have been given — but I will allow myself the indulgence of being a little proud of my family and my friends, my church, our community, the good-hearted people of our country, the quiet, gracious people who quietly do what can be done (or at least some of what can be done), who share their wealth and their time, who have in them the kindness and the generosity that never have come easily to me, who do not forget, and who by their modest example share the immeasurably greater promise that there is room at our Father’s table and in our Father’s house for all of us, that it doesn’t have to be as cold as it sometimes seems it is, that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.