I hope your Christmas celebrations were filled with joy and laughter. Unless you were very quick on the draw last Friday, you did not (as I did not) get to access the 2nd Pray As You Go Advent resource I mentioned. Wouldn’t you know PAYG would choose that very weekend to completely renovate their app and their website – and they eliminated the meditations on the Antiphones from Isaiah. Bummer. Well, I hope you are enjoying the other Advent audio retreat from the prologue of the Gospel of John. The last session is up as we make our way through the 12 Days of Christmas before Epiphany.
I often find myself, right around this time of year, and particularly this year, my first Advent & Christmas following the introduction to contemplative practice, wishing that I could be sitting in a monastary somewhere in England or Wales or Scotland (too bad there aren’t more monastaries in places like Jamaica or the Bahamas… why are they all in cold places??). I would love to let go of all the cultural trappings that surround Christmas and just spend time in contemplation of the incarnation, of Mary being chosen to bear the Son of God, of Elizabeth sharing in the miracle of impossible birth, of Joseph wondering what on earth he’d gotten himself into and being sidelined forever in the story, of pagan astrologers seeing the birth of this King as something to leave home for, of the Slaughter of the Innocents, of God becoming like me, and just all the things. Maybe one day when all my children are grown…
Today is the 4th day of Christmas. And in the high church tradition, it is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. I find it fascinating that there is a “feast” to commemorate a mass slaughter of babies. I generally think of feasts as a celebratory event. This is obviously not a thing to celebrate. But maybe we can learn something from the idea of commemorating tragedies. We do it as a nation; 9/11 gets commemorated each year and has a giant memorial in NYC (you should see it if you go), Memorial Day commemorates those who have died serving in our country’s defense, flags fly at half-staff to commemorate the death of a national icon, etc.
But it got me thinking about our own personal tragedies. Maybe there is something to the idea of pausing and reflecting and doing something ceremonial to remember the pain and the tragedy that is part of living in a fallen world. Not in a celebratory kind of way, but in a remembrance kind of way. Of course with the “big” things, we remember, and often do something to commemorate – the birthday of a loved one who has been repatriated to our true home, or maybe the day they left – but what about the “smaller” but no less impactful losses and sorrows? How could we remember, sitting WITH Jesus in the memory, the loss of a home to an unwanted move, or fire, or flood, or hurricane, or the loss of a relationship you tried to preserve, but failed, or the loss of health, ability, or limb to accident, illness, or age, or a loss of independence due to age, transition, or cultural change?
The story of Christmas, and the incarnation, is full of tragedy if you stop to think about it – the slaughter of the innocents is certainly a big one, but there are more. Jesus leaving perfect life and perfect relationship to live HERE (I might have chosen a time with vehicles and electricity if I were going to choose a time to live on earth…). Mary’s loss of reputation through her untimely pregnancy – and never really being able to tell people (believably) what the truth was (“Suuuurre you’re having the Messiah. Uh-huh… That’s what they all say!”). Joseph and Mary being displaced (Egypt to escape a tyrannically jealous king – but also, why did they not return to Nazareth after Jesus was born and have the wise men find them there?). These stories were given to us right alongside the sweet story of a baby in a manger visited by happy shepherds, if we pause long enough to see them. Why? What are we to learn from the remembrance and commemoration of tragedies juxtaposed with joy?
How might we commemorate the tragedies and losses in our own lives in a way that lets Jesus be “God with us” in the memory, and in their ongoing effects in our lives today? Maybe pondering the inclusion of the Slaughter of the Innocents in the Christmas story today will give you insight into how to integrate your own tragedies in the story He is writing for you.
Rejoicing in the sure redemption of all things painful,
Kim
I am not going to include any images this week. But if you do want to spend some time contemplating the inclusion of the story of Herod’s massacre in our Christmas narrative, and how such an inclusion might inform the inclusion of tragedy in your own life narrative, perhaps you would want to spend some time looking at some artists’ renditions of this event. There are many. None are fun to ponder. (And some are weirder than others…) But a quick Google Images search of “Massacre of the Innocents” will give you plenty of pondering fodder.