NO BED OF ROSES FOR INFANT JESUS

NO BED OF ROSES FOR INFANT JESUS
by
Joseph E. Mulligan, S.J.

(continued from my Christmas-New Year letter, Jan. 2010)

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled” (Luke 6:21). Those who participate in this struggle, with new hearts of flesh and with confidence in the God of Life, do experience even in the present a certain peace and inner joy as a foretaste of the Kingdom.

The scene I have described unfolded in the Christian Base Community of a barrio called “Georgino Andrade.” The very name reminds us of struggle and bloodshed: Georgino Andrade was a young Delegate of the Word of God in northern Nicaragua who became a coordinator of the 1980 Literacy Crusade and for that was killed by the U.S.-supported Nicaraguan Contras in their terrorist campaign to undermine the Sandinista revolutionary government.

The barrio is characterized by poverty, unemployment, lack of opportunity for good education, poor medical care, drugs, violence, and other scourges of the poor – but many of the people are also characterized by good family life (not always with the father present), solidarity, a struggle to make ends meet, the formation of community, the nurturing of faith and hope and love.

Some children and youth do keep clean of drugs and resist the gang culture, especially those who find a positive alternative – such as the youth groups of our Christian Base Community, assisted and encouraged by the Oblate sisters of the Heart of Jesus.

So, let us continue to proclaim the “good news of great joy” even in conditions of deprivation and violence, or especially in those conditions, which are so common in the human race. Indeed, violence and oppression in its many forms – including ecological harm, sexism, terrorism -- is the experience of all of us, rich or poor; and Jesus (whose name means “God saves”) can “save us from our sins” and from the structural consequences of our sinful selfishness if we come to know him and his message of love in the gospels, become his close friends and followers, and work with him for a new future.

In my Christmas “letter to friends” of 2004 I presented some aspects of the nativity which showed that Jesus was not born in any bed of roses --

Gospel writers Matthew and Luke had punctuated their infancy narratives with some threatening and disturbing aspects of the news. Jesus was born in a small country occupied by the world empire of the time, and in a situation of poverty – in a manger, outside the inn -- akin to the homelessness of millions in the world today.

Continuing with Luke, we find that the good news of the savior’s birth is first heralded to shepherds – workers in the hills, marginalized from “society,” illiterate. Jesus himself would later say that he had come to proclaim “the good news to the poor and freedom to captives” (Lk 4:18).

And when Jesus was presented in the temple, Simeon, though filled with joy and gratitude, nevertheless made a chilling prediction to Mary: “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Lk 2:34-35).

In Matthew’s version, the virgin Mary’s acceptance of her calling to be the mother of Jesus put her at risk of being rejected by Joseph and even condemned and punished by society. Just after giving birth to Jesus, she and Joseph became refugees fleeing from the wrath of a jealous and paranoid Herod, who decreed the massacre of “all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under” (Mt 2:16). These victims represent all the innocent civilians slaughtered by emperors, fuehrers, and presidents from ancient rulers to Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush.

Thus it is clear that the gospels do not paint a rosy, blissful picture of the human situation which God enters to heal. Rather, this history, then as now, is laden with risk, poverty, oppression, violence, and lust for power. The incarnation of God would indeed be powerless and meaningless for us if it had been situated in a make-believe fantasy world where things were getting better and better every day in every way. But Christmas hope is a tough hope, capable of confronting the most dreadful realities.

Then and now, God enters into real history, as it is – with the tsunamis, with massacres of bus passengers in Honduras, with the growing devastation of Iraq, with hunger, lack of medical care in many parts of the world, and with a U.S. election which many of us consider extremely harmful for the U.S. and the world. This is the biblical God in whom we believe, praised by Mary as the one who has “brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly,” and who “has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Lk 1:52-53).

In the face of appalling destruction and shocking human evil, this God, Emmanuel, “God with us,” struggles in history for the cause of truth and justice and peace, calling us to work with her to help the coming of the Kingdom.

Our world is no calmer, brighter, or more peaceful than the world in which the Savior was born, and yet he continues to be born every day in people who love and serve one another and who struggle for a realm of brotherhood and sisterhood.

As we look to the challenges of 2005, we need all the help we can get to remain cheerful, hopeful, and committed; and we can count on it!

SOME PRACTICAL TIPS FOR SUSTAINING HOPE:

1. Recognize that the mass media, and sometimes our own conversations, give disproportionate attention to the bad news – tragedies, atrocities, horrible accidents. It is easy to get depressed by such a one-sided view of “reality.”
2. In order to nourish hope in the struggle, we need to come together, form communities, organize, and stay united.
3. Together we analyze problems and injustices carefully and from various perspectives, and we name the problems and the causes of suffering; this helps us to get a handle on the reality and to avoid being overwhelmed by it.
4. Then we strategize intelligently, and realistically, aiming for a significant if not total victory all at once.
5. Divide up the tasks that need to be done, and stay together in working and struggling. Working together itself seems to nourish hope.
6. Reflect on successes and failures, celebrating the former and learning from the latter.