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The Other Side of Christmas

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“She gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them at the inn.”  (Luke 2:7)  When we hear the Gospel of Luke read aloud at Christmas Mass, we know that, at last, our Advent wait is over.  With joy we can sing our carols “for real”—not in anticipation.

We so identify with Luke’s story of Jesus’ birth, that we rarely spend much time pondering the Matthew version. Where Luke tells the story of Mary, Matthew tells the story of Joseph. We may be familiar with the details, especially the Three Wise Men, but we tend to dip into Matthew only for added touches to the story as told by Luke. But let’s go there this Christmas.

Joseph’s story is a troubling one, full of dreams and portent, danger and delivery. A partial list of the troubling events in Matthew 1 and 2, would include: an unplanned pregnancy and the questions it raised, the decision to divorce, marital tension, the decision to adopt, sexual abstinence, civil unrest, living in a dictatorship, encountering an evil person, astrology, death threats, terror in the night, fleeing for their life, living as refugees in a foreign land, separation from family and friends, and murder.

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Yet this, too, is Christmas, something we need to remember—especially when our own experience of Christmas is a troubling one. There can be and are, for everyone, years when the promised peace escapes us to say nothing of society’s imperative to “be merry.”Does Christmas, then, not apply in our case or at this time? Read Matthew 1-2. Where was God in the midst of all that darkness and chaos? Being born. Might God be in the midst of our own darkness and chaos?

Perhaps especially telling this year is the episode in Mt 2:16-18, the Holy Innocents. This, too, is part of Christmas, ours as well as theirs. When and how did Mary and Joseph get the news of the tragedy that befell the families of Bethlehem? How did they feel in that moment? We know. We felt it for the families of Newtown. Only a God willing to enter into that kind of suffering can offer us any hope.

This Friday, December 28th, is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. I would suggest that we all keep that as a holy day this year. Make it to Mass if you can but at least read Matthew 1-2, and pray for our own holy innocents and their families. Pray for them with the heart of Mary and Joseph.