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The
Bishop's Journal
December 2001
Our Hopes and Fears
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
As a child, I was always mystified by this line from the carol O Little Town of Bethlehem. I understood something of the hope of Christmas. I knew something of how that hope was expressed in Jesus. But what about the fears? What role could fear possibly play in the wondrous and beautiful story of the first Christmas?
The nativity images that most of us carry from childhood are similarly weighted. They are soft and pastoral. A smiling Mary, a beaming Joseph, kindly looking animals, polite and gentlemanly shepherds, all surrounding a chubby, "no crying he makes" baby who lays contentedly and comfortably in a soft bundle of golden hay.
It's a carefully edited image that evokes little of the fearfulness that would have characterized that first Christmas night: the fear of a young mother about to bear her first child, alone in a cattle shed; the fear of a poor father unable to provide his family with proper shelter; the fear of simple shepherds startled by the unexpected appearance of heavenly emissaries; the fear of a jealous and vengeful king whose terrors would soon force the young family to flee to a distant land as refugees.
But this was the context in which God acted. Christmas tells us that God was not content to have the world remain lost in the darkness of fear and sinfulness. Instead, God entered into the world in a very special way through the person of Jesus of Nazareth. In the midst of so much that is dark and frightening, Christ comes as Saviour to reveal anew the good news of God's gracious and loving intention toward the world. Jesus is God incarnate. Jesus is divine hope personified.
Hope and fear did, indeed, meet on that first Christmas night. And they've been meeting there every since! It's just that many of us haven't had occasion to think about it all that much. Most of us simply don't know what it's like to experience feelings of fearfulness at Christmas time. But this Christmas will be different. Fear is now a tangible reality that exists for us in a way that was unthinkable one year ago. Anthrax might not be contagious, but fear is. Our world has changed. All is no longer calm and bright for us.
But fear is not the final word for this Christmas any more than it was for the first. That's why, in spite of our anxieties and fears, it is not a message of fear, but rather one of hope, that Christians will again proclaim and celebrate this Christmas - and perhaps with a deeper integrity than might be the case under less challenging circumstances.
Hope, too, is contagious. But it shines brightest in the midst of darkness. It isn't like a spotlight that blasts forth into the future. It doesn't illumine all the answers and remove all the questions. Rather, it is more like a lantern that we carry with us - a light that helps us see around our feet, to see where we are planted and in what direction we are moving.
May God grant us the light of such a hope this Christmas-tide.
The Rev. Michael J. Pryse,
Bishop
