Day 23. A new path

[above: Addison’s Walk, Magdalen College, Oxford—Tricia Porter]

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. (Matthew 2:12, NRSV)

Herod had his place, therefore, in the miracle play of Bethlehem, because he is the menace to the Church Militant, and shows it from the first as under persecution and fighting for its life. For those who think this a discord, it is a discord that sounds simultaneously with the Christmas bells.

—G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

On this side of heaven, Christmas comes tied up with green ribbon and red tape. The Magi’s rerouting, along with the Holy Family’s, reminds us that Christmas is a time for celebrating light, but that such light shines in the darkness. Chesterton’s words recall how the Magi’s own gifts at the birth represented kingship, deity, and death. How can a holy nativity be bound so closely to a horrific mass infanticide? Or a homecoming census entwined with such desperate exile?

Our lives reflect these same paradoxes today, and so the nativity story remains as relevant as ever in its refrain of how God’s guidance helps those in danger and despair navigate the politics of pain.

Dreams drive the action in the nativity story. Those Christmas angels were busy! Through dreams Christmas leads us from the Old Testament into the New. The transformation of the spirit helps us navigate the twists and turns of the world.

Pilgrimages obedient to our dreams illustrate just how Emmanuel is indeed God fully with us, including in the most secret places of ourselves, even when we think he cannot be, even when we cannot think at all.

Once transformed by Christ, we must take a new path to “return” to our lives. Birth requires death, and death leads to birth, as T. S. Eliot’s famous poem, “The Journey of the Magi,” reminds us. If it is a discord, it is a discord that sounds simultaneously with the Christmas bells, indeed. For the journey is ours as much as it is for those awaiting our arrival, and the transformation of all of us rings far beyond our wildest dreams.

PRAYER: Dear Lord, in our broken world there often seems to be more strife than joy. Help us find among the notes of discord a new song. When all hope seems lost, and we ourselves lost with it, show us another way back to you. Amen.

By Carolyn Weber

[Christian History originally published this article in Christian History Issue #133+ in 2019]

Carolyn Weber completed her doctorate in Romantic literature at Oxford University. She is currently an author, speaker, and professor at Heritage College & Seminary and Western University in London, Canada.