Christmas Eve 1941

On Christmas Eve, 1941, seventeen days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President and Mrs. Roosevelt hosted a state dinner at the White House. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, along with his staff of 60, was the guest of honor. Presents were exchanged. A group of carolers sang Oh Little Town of Bethlehem. The world was at war, but the light of hope still shined in the darkness.

That same night, on the other side of the world, Adolf Hitler sat in a log cabin in East Prussia. He had told his generals that the war would be over by Christmas. Now, his advance stalled within sight of the Kremlin by subzero temperatures and stubborn Russian resistance, he realized the war was just beginning. There were no decorations to brighten his room. No carolers. The Fuhrer dined alone.

Long before Hitler tried to take over the world, or Hirohito tried to conquer a continent, a ruler named Herod tried to eliminate a rival to his throne. He failed, of course, but the collateral damage was so horrific, Matthew had to borrow words from Jeremiah, Israel’s saddest prophet, to describe it: A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more.           

The world feels very dangerous these days. Old powers flex their muscles. New enemies employ tactics that redefine brutality. Our leaders seem incapable of solving the simplest domestic problems, much less the enormous geopolitical quandaries we face. It all feels so very old.

And in that, oddly, there is hope. We may not have been exactly in this place before, but we have been in places like this. More than once. Evil men have always been willing to kill to get what they want or to keep what they have taken. It is not only the poor that we will always have with us – it is the wicked, too. And sometimes, they will wield enormous power.

Christmas is God’s promise that the bullies of the world – those who lead nations or those who threaten neighborhoods, haunt school hallways or sleep down the hall in our own homes – never have the last word. There is a light that always shines in the dark streets of our lives to light our hopes and chase our fears. The light has a name. His name is Jesus.