A not-so-silent night

By Tyler Tankersley

This is a special Christmas for my family and me. My wife is currently expecting our third child (a baby girl) that is due in the early days of January. Advent and Christmastide have taken on special significance as we have sung about the coming Christ child.

It's also reminded me, however, that songs like "Silent Night" and "Away in a Manger" clearly were not written by people who have to deal with any actual infants.

Silent night!? Seriously? And I have always cringed at this line in "Away in a Manger": "But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes." Really!? Infant Jesus didn't cry? So, are my infant daughter's cries just a sign of her total depravity? Give me a break.

Don't get me wrong. I love both of those Christmas hymns very much; however, it reminds me that we often are guilty of whitewashing Christmas. We tend to love all the comfortable parts of Christmas: snowmen, reindeer, Santa Claus and a peaceful, serene Nativity set. Anyone who has actually been witness to a birth knows there is also an element of uncertainty and fear involved in any birth, let alone one that would have happened in a first-century stable.

The Christmas story itself is full of some uncomfortable moments: Caesar Augustus issues a decree to take up a census so he could tax the populace better, the angels appear in a field to shady and untrustworthy shepherds, a group of Persian astrologers follow a star in the sky, and Mary becomes pregnant under circumstances I am sure would have been seen as questionable to her neighbors.

But, even in the midst of all the odd situations, messy entanglements and loud noises of that very first Christmas, it was still the ushering in of the greatest moments of hope, peace, joy and love in human history.

Perhaps one of the lessons we can learn from Christmas is that we should never confuse Christ with comfort. Jesus comes to us not necessarily in the clean and tranquil moments of life, but also the messy, confusing, frustrating and even painful moments.

During this Christmas day, I hope you experience all of the joy and wonder that come with the holidays. But even if you don't, may you remember the Christ child is with us during times of hope and during times of fear, during times of peace and during times of chaos, during times of joy and during times of depression, during times of love and during times of pain.

I hope and I pray that you will take seriously the angels' declaration that, no matter where you find yourself in life, unto you a child is born!