You, too, may have seen a photo of this controversial creche online. Instead of a traditional, peaceful manger scene, the Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem created a scene of lament called, “God in the Rubble.” Here, the baby Jesus is swathed in a keffiyeh, the scarf that symbolizes Palestinian nationalism. He lies in the rubble alone, like a forgotten, cast-off doll. He’s isolated by pieces of jagged, broken concrete, the detritus of war. Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, and the magi are all small figures peering down at him in consternation from above. Mary and Joseph, especially, seem to be reaching out to their child in longing, as if to gather him back in their arms, as if they would do anything to make him safe. No matter your take on the politics of the Holy Land, this is a haunting image of lament to ponder at Christmas.
Since Christmas Eve, I’ve continued to pray with the Bethlehem creche. As a comfortable American Christian, I keep getting stuck in guilt, though-- seeing myself as having a role in the baby’s plight. I fret over the sin that can cover a whole people, the “evil done on my behalf,” as we pray sometimes in our confession. I ache with my long-distance participation in the deaths of innocent people in Gaza and, indeed, in refugee camps and war zones around the globe. So many babies, all breaking my heart and accusing me at the same time. Does my power and privilege push them under the rubble? At such times, all I can pray is, “Lord, have mercy.” Mercy for them, and mercy for me. Mercy for our nation and for our world. Lord, have mercy.
Sometimes, though, rather than guilt and sadness, I feel a burning indignation when I study this creche. I want to lash out at the world leaders who act only to gain power for themselves. I want to smite the extremists of all religions, including mine. Yes, sometimes I try on the outrage that fills our sibling Christians in Palestine. In his Christmas Eve sermon, the pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church, the Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, explained his take on the creche, his voice often harsh with anger and grief. “In our pain, anguish and lament, we [Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem] have searched for God and found him under the rubble in Gaza,” Isaac said. “And in this Christmas season ... he is to be found not on the side of Rome, but our side of the wall ... Barely and miraculously surviving a massacre... When we glorify pride and richness, Jesus is under the rubble,” Isaac continued. “When we rely on power, might and weapons, Jesus is under the rubble. When we justify, rationalize and theologize the bombing of children, Jesus is under the rubble. This is his manger. He is at home with the marginalized, the suffering, the oppressed and displaced. This is his manger.”[1]
When my heart gets stirred up with anger, I hang onto the words of the prophet Isaiah that we heard today. He join him, with all the obstinate hope and feverish longing that I can muster: “I will not rest until … vindication shines out like the dawn, and … salvation like a burning torch.” The Hebrew word translated as both righteousness and vindication in today’s reading refers to God’s overflowing goodness. It’s a transforming goodness, a new order, ushered in with justice, praise, and divine Glory.[2] This Righteousness and Vindication become my prayer: an urgent plea for God to set things right once and for all. “We need it now, God,” I pray with today's psalmist. Now’s the time to lift up the lowly and cast the wicked to the ground. Come on, God. Now’s the time to heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds. Now’s the time for peace. As I look down into the rubble with the shepherds, watching the outcome of evil and genocide, I join them in pleading for God’s promised vindication!
It wasn’t until I studied the Prologue to John’s Gospel and our reading from Galatians, though, that I began to identify with the baby Jesus in the rubble, himself. And there, I found freedom. As baby Jesus, heartbroken and vulnerable, I found redemption in his fragile flesh. For John the Evangelist and his readers, you see, the idea of God’s Glory entering the world and becoming flesh was as strange and scandalous as the idea of baby Jesus in the ruins of Gaza is to us American Christians. For Greek-speakers in the early centuries after Jesus’ birth, it was incomprehensible to think that a divine being, a God of glory and never-changing perfection, would or could enter into the “world.” Indeed, the world was always cast in a negative light, as a place of impermanence and corruption, a lesser and separate place from the perfect realm of light and spirit. Moreover, human flesh itself was seen only as something to transcend, as something inferior to mind and spirit. If God were to be found in a human being, it would have made much more sense to early Gentile Christians for God to reside only in a human spirit—not in human flesh.
Yet, in our Gospel reading, John dares to proclaim the scandalous miracle of incarnation: that “The Word became flesh and lived among us.” Literally, God pitched God’s tent in this failing, fallen world, entering into sin, suffering, and death with us. God came into the painful rubble of the world. And according to John, that’s where God reveals God’s glory, God’s truth, to us: the glory and truth of God’s loving-kindness, poured out endlessly, over and over again, re-creating all of the broken places. By becoming human flesh, God in Christ empowers us, too, to become God’s beloved children.
St. Paul takes this idea further in his letter to the Galatian Christians: "when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman … so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! [Daddy!]" So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.” An heir. We messed up humans--God's heirs, along with Christ. Such is our Christmas gift, should we but open it. In Christ, God has adopted us, clothed us in Glory. We are One in Christ, no matter which wars divide us; no matter how many times we go astray and have to start over. We have been redeemed by the divine baby lying naked among the broken pieces. Because this baby is God, we can rejoice in our flesh, and in the precious flesh of all creation.
Lately, I’ve been reading Cole Arthur Riley’s book, This
Here Flesh. Riley is a young black author seeking a spirituality beyond
whiteness. The title of her book is a reference to Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved.
Morrison, in the voice of the black woman-preacher Baby Suggs, speaks to her
suffering community, newly freed from slavery. After she leads them in weeping,
laughing and dancing together, Baby Suggs preaches: “In this here place, we
flesh. Flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love
it. Love it hard.”[3]
Riley later comments, “True lament is
not born from that trite sentiment that the world is bad but rather from a deep
conviction that it is worthy of goodness.”[4] We can love and lament at the same time. We are all worthy of goodness, even when the goodness is
hidden, even when its hiddenness breaks our hearts. We are all redeemed, ready
to join with God in the urgent work of transformation and justice. As Riley exclaims, “If we embrace the beauty of all creation, we find our
own beauty magnified. What is shalom but dignity stretched out like a blanket
over the cosmos?”[5] What is true peace but dignity for all, stretched out like a blanket over
the cosmos, held aloft in my hand and your hand and in the hand of the Baby in the
Rubble?
[1] Munther Isaac, quoted in https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/christ-in-the-rubble-service-from-christmas-lutheran-church-in-bethlehem-draws-a-large-online-crowd/. December 24, 2023
[2] Patricia Tull, Working Preacher, Commentary on Isaiah 61, 2012, found at www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1155.
[3] Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh (New York: Penguin Random House, 2022), Kindle Edition, 4.
[4] Riley, Kindle Edition, 98.
[5] Riley, Kindle Edition, 7.
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