The fourth verse of the Christmas carol “We Three Kings” always struck me as an unnecessarily maudlin bummer:
“Myrrh is mine, it’s bitter perfume
Breaths a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding dying,
Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.”
What was that Wise Man thinking?
“Happy birthday, baby Jesus. Let’s get on with the embalming.”
Kill-joy – literally.
But in 2020, when hundreds of thousands of families in this nation will be celebrating Christmas while grieving the recent death of a loved one, that verse suddenly sounds urgently relevant to me. It’s not like I didn’t know this, teach this, claim this – but 2020 makes me experience this in a way I’ve not experienced this before: Jesus was born… to die.
Jesus was born to die, but not like the rest of us, who are born to die as an inevitability of the cycle of life. No, Jesus – eternal and omnipotent God – assumed mortality through birth for the specific purpose of conquering sin and death by dying Himself.
In my experience, this aspect of Christmas is mostly ignored in the usual stampede through the tinsel to the cookies and presents. We stage live Nativities, decorate Chrismon trees, shop ‘til we drop, bake ‘til we ache, and try to “keep Christ in Christmas” by reading to the kids about the shepherds on the hillside before we read “A Visit from St Nicolas.” And while this “normal” is not really bad, it’s obviously and wholly inadequate to 2020.
The inadequacy begins in the way we scope-lock our focus on JOY and BIRTH as if that’s the accurate way to mark the Nativity. Does such a focus demonstrate our desire to self-soothe via a secularized, Santa-like salvation – rather than acknowledging the unimaginably costly sacrifice of Christ? Perhaps. Likely, even.
Whereas we can usually almost get away with the “Christmas, Lite” version, a global pandemic creates conditions that reveal the fragility of our ruse. An artificial separation between death and Christmas makes our present situation untenable. We have to acknowledge that Christmas has had much to say about death, all along, or we have to skip over Christmas (or – worse! – “fake it”) in the face of all this global dying.
In a year when Intensive Care Units will be more full than churches on Christmas Eve, it’s a gift of God’s grace to remember that Jesus’s birth renders death powerless over all who belong to Him.
God chose to take on human flesh – to be “incarnate” – for the express purpose of taking the weight of our flesh (its sinfulness, weakness, ultimate failure) on Himself. Our burdens became His; His blessing became ours. And our physical death became eternal life because He chose to be born and to die on our behalf.
So many reminders built into the fabric of our theology and our practice, but so many distractions that keep us from being reminded:
Historically, Jesus’s birth catalyzed the deaths of thousands of other babies, when Herod’s rage at having missed the newborn King spent itself on massacring all King’s contemporaries.
Traditionally, celebrating Jesus’s birth is immediately followed by celebrating the first Christian martyr – St. Stephen – on December 26th.
Scripturally, Jesus is introduced by angels who make it clear that the infant is coming with a mission… He is to be named “Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins…” (Matthew); and He is the “Savior” (Luke).
Further, “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” (John)
The self-sacrifice of salvation, the rejection and betrayal, the darkness and pain and desolation that were the price of Jesus’s ultimate goal – all of this is a given, right from the first.
Therefore, practically, we must approach the manger while acknowledging the empty tomb – especially this year. Especially this year!
“Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” – one of the most splendid and joyful of Christmas carols – synopsizes our appropriate attitude in its less-frequently-sung third verse:
“Hail the Heav’n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth!
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing:
“Glory to the newborn King!”
As he often does, the Apostle Paul says it beautifully: “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” (1 Timothy 1:15)
The point of the miracle in the manger was – is – and always will be – our salvation. Christ was born to die; Christ was born to rise from the dead; Christ’s birth points us to the grave and beyond – to our eternal home with Christ.
May we receive the unique gift of clarity this Christmas… Clarity about who we are, and Whose we are, and how utterly free from fear we are called to be because of who and Whose we are. Even in 2020.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned these words in the midst of the Civil War, after his own son had been grievously wounded in battle. The bells he describes are the opposite of tinkling “jingle bells” – they ring out in deep, rich tones of hope in the face of desolate circumstances. I offer them to you here, along with prayers for a Christmas bathed in Holy Spirit peace!
‘And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”’
