Christmas as War | Kiersti Giron

With a somewhat heavy heart, I sang Christmas carols in church this Sunday.

Joy to the world! The Lord is come.

Let earth receive her king

Let every heart prepare Him room

And heaven and nature sing…

But through my mind whirled the shootings of this past month and the mother we heard of the night before who was rolled over by a car. Where was that joy and hope and peace Jesus’ coming was supposed to bring? What we were supposed to be celebrating?

I knew it must be there. But I was having a hard time seeing it just then.

I came home from church to find a message from friends in New Mexico of a child’s tragic accidental death in a parking lot. And one from another friend whose half-brother of her little grandson is talking about killing himself. Tears welled, and my heart cried—Oh, Lord. Why?

The reading and sermon at church Sunday focused on Simeon and his prophecy over forty-day-old Jesus:

“Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.” ~Luke 2:34-35

And I remembered that Jesus Himself said He did not come to bring peace but a sword—though His coming does bring peace, just not always the kind we expect, until someday it reaches fulfillment. I remembered a missionary we know who used to often say, “Life is war,” reminding us our battle is not against flesh and blood.

And I thought that in a very real way, Christmas is war too.

Christ’s coming was not just as “a sweet baby in a manger,” as our pastor pointed out this week. His birth was God’s incredibly daring invasion into a world taken over by the prince of darkness. And this invasion was not without backlash—though thanks to God’s angelic warning and Joseph’s quick obedience, little Jesus’ life was protected, countless babies were killed in a surely Satanic counter-attack. The battle continued throughout Jesus’ life, with the ultimate clash—and triumph—at the cross and empty tomb.

Yet though the war has been won, combat continues. No wonder the Enemy likes to strike at Christmas.

Yet His hope, His peace, His healing and redeeming are just as present as the devil’s darts. They just often seem more underground. But the weakness of God is stronger than men, the foolishness of God wiser than men…like a newborn in a manger, shepherds and sheep, a tiny, overlooked town, and searchers of the stars who weren’t even from Israel.

This is the way He inaugurated His plan to save the world.

After the sermon, I rose to help serve communion. I don’t do it often, and I’ve been rather intimidated by the responsibility in the past. But this Sunday, holding the chunk of loaf in one hand and the dish of gluten-free fragments in the other, I wasn’t afraid—I was glad, with a gladness that choked my throat with tears as I whispered to one after another, “The Body of Christ, given for you…broken for you.”

Parents holding toddlers…a friend who came to know Jesus for the first time in the past year…children no more than three or four years old, their eyes bright with trust…a young family who just moved into a transitional house for homeless families. He gave His body for them. To be broken, and torn, like countless fingers today broke and tore the loaf from my hands in remembrance, in receiving of grace.

“Jesus—Jesus,” one tiny girl kept saying during the sermon, whether in response to our pastor, in reference to her Bible coloring pages, or from her own little heart, I don’t know. But I think she had it right.

Jesus is God’s invasion into this world of darkness with a laser beam of blinding light. He is the ultimate proof that God cares. Though I don’t always understand why He does not spare this world and the people in it the most horrific depths of suffering, at least we know that He did not spare Himself either.

“He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

“But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.” ~Isaiah 53:3-5

He does not shrink away from the painful, the broken. He allowed Himself to be broken, and given, for us.

That is why we have Christmas.

2 comments on “Christmas as War”

a tiny pilgrim says:

December 24, 2013 at 6:53 pm

Truly Beautiful!…And a much needed reminder this Christmas Season! Thank you Kiersti 🙂

- Kiersti says:
  
  December 24, 2013 at 9:10 pm
  
  Thank you! And Merry Christmas!

2 comments on “Christmas as War”

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