By Darryl Tippens

I’ve been trying to get into the spirit of the season this year, and to be frank, it’s been difficult. The juxtaposition of the daily news—the tensions in our own country, but even more the pervasive scenes of suffering and death in Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza set against the season’s cheerful carols—is jarring.

Recently, while attending a Christmas concert, hearing the beautiful words “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright,” something strange happened.  Instead of joy, I felt a pang of sadness as the faces of personal friends living in war zones rose unbidden in my mind.

Lovely, aging grandmother Tatiana in St. Petersburg is worried about her grandson being called up to serve in the Russian military. Pastor Arthur, the father of a young daughter, bravely preaches and teaches in a Ukrainian church, even with the cadence of bombs falling in the distance. And then there is kind-hearted Raed, my former student, who lives in Israel just twenty miles from the Lebanese border, the source of Hezbollah rockets coming his way almost daily.

Tatiana, Arthur, and Raed are committed Christians. They observe Christmas like I do. I wonder: What carols will they be singing this Christmas? 

And yet they will celebrate Christmas this year, and so will I. It was precisely into such a world as this one that the Lord Jesus came. He did not descend into human flesh because all was well but precisely because it was not.

Historians sometimes say that Jesus was born in the time of the Pax Romana—a golden age of comparative peace in the Mediterranean world that lasted 200 years. But the banner of “Roman peace” is a laughably grotesque whitewash. The “peace” was purchased by imperial Rome’s universal persecution, slavery, and terror. The cross was visible everywhere in Roman times long before Christianity transformed its meaning. The cross originally was a pervasive sign of unspeakable cruelty and murder. Into this domain the Prince of  Peace came.

Who could have guessed on Christmas Day that God began to undo the horrors of Rome and turn an instrument of torture into a sign of hope. That work continues today.

The truth is Christmas has always been celebrated in dark times. We don’t know what time of the year Christ was actually born, but it’s fitting that the Light of the World would arrive on a cold, winter night. At the recent Abilene Christian University Christmas Vespers concert I heard a lovely carol—new to me—but actually a 19^th-century hymn composed by Edward Caswall. It begins:

See, amid the winter’s snow,
Born for us on Earth below,
See, the tender Lamb appears,
Promised from eternal years.

A later stanza addresses the Christ Child:

Sacred Infant, all divine
What a tender love was thine
Thus to come from highest bliss
Down to such a world as this.

That last line caught my breath. The Christ Child came “Down to a world such as this.” A world such as this. He did not descend into a good and happy Eden, but into a dangerous and desperate landscape. The Savior of the world did not come just to spirit us away to heaven, but to lay upon us his transforming mission.  He came to redeem us from ourselves—from our indifference, greed, and lust for power and glory—so that we in turn could continue to do his humble work on earth. That work is not done. He came to mold us to “resemble” him. The prayer continues:

Teach, O teach us, Holy Child,
By thy Face so meek and mild,
Teach us to resemble Thee,
In Thy sweet humility.

Christmas will come again this year, not because all is right with the world, but because it is not. Even as the faces of Tatiana in Russia, Arthur in Ukraine, and Raed in Israel rise before me, I will sing, even if haltingly, “Silent Night.” I will sing in defiance of the darkness, believing in the promise of a new heaven and a new earth. I will sing in the full knowledge of the anguish of families waiting for their loved ones being held hostage, those searching for children buried under rubble, those weeping beside the hospital beds of torn bodies, and those grasping for a crust of bread or a cup of water. 

Christmas is more than a party. It is a reminder to act like Jesus, to act boldly to make this world a better home for all who are created in his image. In short, to “resemble” him: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them . . . because as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:16-17).

Much of our world is in ruins. Christmas is a call not to pretend otherwise, but to hope in the midst of darkness, and—by the power God gives us—to love fully and serve freely in “a world such as this.” What a humbling call, to walk with all the Tatianas and Arthurs and Raeds of the world, to love them, serve them, and celebrate Christmas with them, even among the ruins.

“Blessed are you, for you have been sent by the Spirit to do the work of love among the ruins. Blessed are you who mend the shattered, who build up what’s been torn down. Blessed are you who accompany the broken, who stand with light and hope amid the rubble.”—Steve Garnaas-Holmes.

Several versions of “See, Amid the Winter’s Snow” may be found on the internet. Here are a few:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJS5-k9IHhY  (Stanford U Chamber Chorale)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Geb6fBFlyYs (Georgia Boy Choir)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5LaL9ThalE (Julie Andrews – solo)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPgo-UfyJgc (King’s College Choir, Cambridge University)

Darryl Tippens is retired University Distinguished Scholar at Abilene Christian University