Have you ever seen one of those miniature Zen gardens? Less than a square foot, they usually contain a little bit of sand, a miniature rake, a few stones, and maybe a small patch of moss. I’ve never used one myself, but I think the idea is that by restricting your focus to a few simple things and taking special care of them, you find peace. For a moment in time, you live inside that garden, and you have peace.
I wonder if that’s not the same experience that some of us have with miniature nativity sets. I know many people who delight in setting up nativity sets, so much so that they have four or five that they set up around the house. I myself have found serenity setting up a nativity scene. There’s something soothing about putting everything in its proper place. Mary and Joseph hovering over the manger. The curious animals looking from behind them. The shepherds arriving outside with wonder. And of course the magi traveling from afar, bearing gifts. As I assemble the scene with special care, the world around me fades and I find peace in the familiarity of the scene and its story, always the same.
A Chaotic Nativity
Of course, if your nativity set lives in close proximity to children and other toys, you may occasionally stumble upon an anachronistic hodgepodge of figurines: shepherds and army men, barn animals and dinosaurs. Your zen may suddenly become a scene of chaos. One of my favorite clips from Mr. Bean, a character played by British comedian Rowan Atkinson, finds him recreating the nativity scene with all sorts of anachronistic intrusions. A parade of British soldiers wanders onto the scene, and a furious Mary shushes them and gives them their marching orders. Next a T-Rex enters the stable, causing quite a stir and requiring more drastic measures. A helicopter with a magnet swoops in to airlift the baby Jesus and his parents into a nearby Barbie-doll house.
Now, as “incorrect” as this nativity retelling is, I wonder if it doesn’t also capture a truth that is often lost in our serene nativity sets. Neither Matthew nor Luke shy away from the fact that the birth of Jesus happens under a deep, dark shadow. Mary and Joseph and company do not live in a peaceful time or place. On the contrary, they live at the beck and call of their Roman overlords, whether it is the Emperor Augustus who calls for a census, or the Roman client ruler of Judea, King Herod, whose paranoia results in a massacre of infants. These two events paint a chaotic backdrop. We may feel that “all is calm, all is bright” when we serenely assemble our Nativity scenes, but the truth is that the Jewish world is roiling at the time of Jesus’ birth.
All Hell…
Our scripture today gestures toward this chaotic background. Biblical readers have observed that the prophet Joel is unlike other prophets. His words do not seem to correspond to any one historical event. Rather his prophecy reads more like a tribute act to the greatest Hebrew prophets, a collection of the prophets’ greatest hits. Which is to say, Joel lives later than most of the prophets. The Jewish people have returned to their own land after the Babylonian exile. They have rebuilt their temple. But all is not well. They live now under the rule of foreign empires: first Persia, then Greece, and then eventually Rome (which is around the time Jesus is born).
Joel’s prophecy outlines a vague threat. The “day of the Lord is near,” he says (Joel 1:15). Soon, a plague of locusts or an invading army—it’s hard to tell which, because Joel mixes his metaphors—will devour and devastate the land. Rather than try to match this threat with a concrete historical event, we might simply observe that it likely would have matched the mood of many Judeans. Even if life was for a moment stable, it felt like all hell could break loose in an instant. And in fact it did on numerous occasions in the five-hundred-year period between the Judeans’ return to their land and Jesus’ birth. Foreign rulers routinely imposed harsh taxes on the Jewish people and even desecrated the Jewish temple on occasion. As a result, the Jewish people simmered in a state of unrest and occasional protest. We know that around the time of Jesus’ birth, just four miles away from Nazareth, in Sepphoris, a Jewish uprising was brutally crushed by the Romans, with the city razed to the ground and the survivors sold into slavery. There may even have been some crucifixions, as we know there were elsewhere when Rome put down rebellion. Mary and Joseph may well have had family or friends killed or enslaved in Sepphoris. Like many Judeans, they would likely have carried the emotional scars and trauma of Roman violence wherever they went.
[All of this to say, their lives around the time of Jesus’ birth were nothing like the zen of our nativity scenes.]
Two Promises
But against the backdrop of the disaster that Joel foretells, he also reminds his audience of two basic promises. The first promise is one we’ve heard over and over again the last few months. We might call it the heartbeat of the Old Testament, the central truth that emerges in its diverse stories and memories. God “is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing” (Joel 2:13). We heard this first from God Godself, when God promises Moses not to destroy the disobedient people of Israel in the wilderness. We heard it again in Jonah and Jeremiah, two very different prophets who nonetheless both recognized this one bedrock truth: God’s unconditional love.
Joel’s second promise comes from God and anticipates a day when God’s spirit will be poured out on all people, women and men, young and old. It is, again, a promise that is repeated throughout the Old Testament, and one that we’ve already heard—if you remember Jeremiah’s prophecy of a covenant written on everybody’s heart, from the least to the greatest (Jer 31:31-34).
To summarize, then, Joel reminds the people of two promises: God loves you unconditionally, and God desires to dwell within your heart.
Conditions of Chaos, Characters at Peace
Let’s return to our nativity scene one more time. I’ve made the argument that the serenity they often convey to us is a bit of an illusion. In other words, we may feel peace as we put all the pieces in their proper place, but the historical truth is one of social upheaval and chaos. The truth is that Mary and Joseph and the others were living in a pressure cooker threatening to explode.
And yet…when I read the story of Jesus’ birth, I cannot escape the impression that the main characters do have a resilient peace guarding their minds and hearts. From the elderly Elizabeth to the young Mary, from the ancient Zechariah and Simeon to the embryonic John the Baptist, everyone seems to have an inexplicable peace. When Mary and Elizabeth meet, they do not exchange worries such as, “How dark the days we live in,” but rather excitement, “Blessed are you among women” and “My soul magnifies the Lord!” (Luke 1:42, 46). John the Baptist is leaping for joy in his mother’s womb, and Zechariah sings a song of gratitude filled with words like “mercy” and “salvation” and “peace” (Luke 1:41, 44, 68-79). What is going on here?
If you read Luke, you’ll notice that all of these characters I’ve mentioned are literally filled with the Holy Spirit. Women and men, young and old. It’s just like Joel said: God longs to dwell in everyone, women and men, young and old. And you’ll notice that the speech of these characters is filled with God’s love. They cannot help but talk about God’s love at work around them—in forgiveness, in redemption, in salvation, in the promise of peace. These characters feel within them that heartbeat of the Old Testament, that most ancient of promises: God’s unconditional love.
While the conditions around them are chaos, these characters are at peace.
Hearts That Welcome God
The reason why? When Joel reminds the troubled Judeans of God’s unconditional love and God’s intention to dwell in every heart, he issues an invitation: “Return to [God] with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your heart and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God…” (Joel 2:12-13). “Rend your heart and not your clothing” is another way of saying, When the world around you is broken, let your heart inside you be broken too. Don’t just tear your clothing, which is the requisite thing to do when mourning. Rend your heart. This is such a radical thing to do because most of us, when things around us get dark or difficult, look for escapes. A distraction on our phone. The cheap thrill of a new toy or convenience. Sweet or savory treats. The drama of other people’s lives, played out on television. So much of the fanfare of this holiday season can be a distraction. Whatever that distraction is, it keeps us from looking within and allowing our hearts to be broken.
But the paradoxical gospel truth is that, only when we allow our hearts to be broken, can God arrive with healing. Only when we open ourselves up, can God’s unconditional love dwell within. The characters in the Christmas story all receive the peace of the Holy Spirit because they all ultimately express the broken-hearted honesty and needfulness that welcomes God to live within them. As Mary puts it, “Let it be with me according to your word.” Or as Jesus would put it later, “Not my will, but thine.”
This Advent, as we assemble our nativity scenes or gaze silently upon their peace, we might be encouraged to remember that in fact the world around the stable was a ticking bomb, ready to explode. Not unlike the way our world feels sometimes. But the characters at that stable were extraordinary exceptions. They were indeed at peace, and not because they had everything in control, but because they let their hearts be broken. And so their hearts were open, and the Spirit of God dwelt within them.
Prayer
God of tender mercy—
We long for your peace but are afraid of letting go
And acknowledging the chaos without and especially within.
…
Help us to be honest about our need
That we might become humble hosts to your Spirit
And bear your good news and peace to a world in despair.
In Christ, who is your Word in the flesh: Amen.
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