Dreaming of a Dark ChristmasPete Greig - 14 Dec 2012

So begins Pete Greig's 3-part series on the Christmas message to 24-7 Prayer....

Christmas is troubling me this year and for that I am grateful. I’m disturbed by the sheer recklessness of God inseminating an unsuspecting teenager and then surrendering himself completely to her limited capabilities in an age before penicillin. Strip the tinsel and the tea-towels from the familiar scene and you will quickly be confronted by the darkness of it all. Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds all approaching the stable with trepidation; amazed for sure, but also afraid. Strange astrologers arriving from distant lands, carrying burial spices for a baby; confusing the crib for a coffin. Herod hunting them down with genocide on his mind. We are blinded by fairy-lights. Someone should commission Tim Burton to make the movie; Nick Cave to write the score.

The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins captured the horror and the wonder of the nativity in four perfect words: ‘infinity dwindled to infancy’. This is the story of the Creator incarcerating himself in a woman’s womb. Here in the cowshed we find omnipotence incontinent. The name above every other name, rumoured a bastard. To call the nativity an act of downward mobility is a ludicrous understatement.  This is a kind of suicide. 

Eight Foot Inflatable Homer

There’s an eight-foot inflatable Homer Simpson dressed as Santa outside a house in my street. Late last night I walked away into open countryside, leaving behind Homer, the street lights and the flashing fairy lights, deliberately entering the night. As my eyes adjusted and the light pollution dissipated, I finally found that vast canopy of silent stars.

The apostle John reminds us that the light shines brightest in the night, and that ‘the darkness has not overcome it.’ (John 1:5) Maybe that’s why some of my favourite Christmas songs are set in sinful places. Tom Waits sings about a hooker in a Minneapolis jail sending a desperate Christmas card to an old flame. There’s a version of ‘Silent Night’ mixed with news reports about the assassination of Martin Luther King. And there’s ‘Fairy Tale of New York’ about an Irish immigrant waking up drunk on a drip in a police cell on Christmas Eve. For me these are the places where the nativity story belongs. Immanuel for the hooker in a Minneapolis jail. The holy child cradled by a drunk on a drip.

Jesus without the rock & roll rider

Someone confided in me today that his house is such a mess that some of his children’s friends aren’t allowed to come round and play. They have been rejected just because they can’t afford curtains and the driveway is a pile of rubble. That made me angry. God doesn’t judge us according to our postcode. He doesn’t mind a bit of dirt. In fact he deliberately sends his son to the very poorest part of town. He invites poor shepherds from the hills, astrologers from the East, hookers from the mid-West and drunks from New York City. The King of Kings prefers to show up in a shambolic cattle-shed than a pristine palace. He’s open to the strangest invitations.

Turns out I am eligible to host the party after all.

‘Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.
Oh come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Emmanuel!’

[You can catch the next two features in the series over the coming weeks so keep checking back]

Feature image is a derivative of the image 'Mary' by ecastro  and is used by permission in accordance with commons copyright license terms.