A Prayer for the Second Sunday of Advent
Dear Jesus,
Measured in decibels, Bethlehem must have been less tranquil the night you were born, the town inundated with cousins. The night you were born, everyone must have gotten less sleep: the adults staying up to share news and the kids staying up to eavesdrop, census workers trying to get comfortable in strange beds and kin—thrown together, locals and out-of-towners—trying to lie still in cramped rooms.
We don’t, though, tell the story like that. We tell the story as if, before you were born, it was a hush, not a crowd, that descended on Bethlehem. We tell it as if birth were not risky, as if Mary were beatifically pondering from the first, as if she weren’t aware of how inadvisable it was to travel, as if bringing God into the world didn’t split her open. We tell the story as if you, Jesus, didn’t need to cry the fluid from your lungs. We tell it as if Herod’s soldiers weren’t in the wings, sharpening the swords that would massacre your age-mates.
We tell the story sentimentally. And, sentimentally, we call you Prince of Peace. Sentimentally—even though you were born to a world that crucified you and mocked you as “the King of the Jews.”
So wring any blasphemy from our adoration, Jesus. Keep us from mocking your first sacrifice: your coming into this world full of rended things and efficient kills. And keep us from the violence of sentimentalizing your birth.
Instead, let us know you. Because surely you know us. You know that peace is not our long suit. You know that when we aren’t firing missiles or rage baiting, we fall into the habit of cheapening peace until it is sweetness or ease, until it’s just the hush to set off Jingle Bells and jingles. Oh, Prince of Peace, if we have tried to tame you, forgive us. If we have prayed for a peace that doesn’t disrupt our complacency, grant instead what we were not bold enough to pray. Amen.
8 Responses
Amen and amen.
R-Glad you’re reading Reformed Journal!
Gary
A Spirit-anointed piece, Jane. Thanking you, I give our Lord thanks for you and your gifts,
A needed perspective. Thank you.
Ouch: If we have prayed for a peace that doesn’t disrupt our complacency…
Thank Jane for this reality check.
If we, as Christians, tell the story of the birth of Jesus the way the four gospels do, then we don’t have to worry about whether the recounting is too tame, blasphemous or sentimental. The message of Jesus ‘birth brings inner peace, regardless of what is happening in the wider world or individual communities and families. This is the focus of the Biblical narrative.
Hi Lena: I agree with your first sentence. The biblical accounts of Jesus’ birth do not provide us with enough psychological fodder to condemn or praise our sentimentalized versions of it. I think Christians have a tendency to sentimentalize it because we are keenly aware that we are not currently experiencing the “Silent Night” and we long for it deeply. We’re not reading the Christmas story to experience more of the strife that we already have in our world and our lives – we’re reading it in hope. Maybe that hope has become too sappy, but it’s hope nonetheless. Jane Zwart’s prayer is a good corrective. As for your last two sentences, I would beg to differ. While inner peace is a component of what Jesus brings (perhaps found in Philippians 4:7), peace is more of a relational term (it’s a peace between two parties) and especially points toward peace with God, with other believers, with neighbors and in our world. Jesus came to bring the wholeness of peace, still a project under constructions. From my way of thinking, then, inner peace by itself is essentially self-focused and not the center of biblical peace. The inner peace we experience comes from when we find peace with God and experiences of peace with others.
Thank you for this prayer, especially the line, which I need to speak more often, “ Oh, Prince of Peace, if we have tried to tame you, forgive us.”