‘Twas a starry, starry night. The shepherd tended the flock, as the sheep
lapped on the ice-cold stream trickling down the mountainside. A few miles away, a handful of wise men
trekked the rugged landscape towards the north.
A stubborn wind blew from the west, as if finding its source in the
wrath of the king.
The king had just issued the decree; every male
child born in the land was to be slain. It
was not a quiet time; there was no peace.
A constant air of fear filled the streets, as armed men scoured the
houses for their next victim. No hymns
played in the distance, and no gifts transferred homes. No bells chimed at this time. This was a time of chaos.
The old wise men had left in the night. Having seen what—or, rather, Who—they had come
for, they pushed on, away from the king that had sent them—the king that they
had now so mightily angered. They were
nomads, moving in no discernible direction.
They traveled not towards a destination, but away from their sure
demise. No longer did they have the
comforts of home. No longer could they
live in peace. Suddenly, their lives
were thrown into chaos.
In the outskirts of the city, a young teen sits in
the heaps of straw laid on the ground, holding a newborn baby in her
clutches. She is unmarried, naive, and
too young to have a child. Her beau sits
unassumingly in the dirt beside her. He
is not the father.
They were the shame of their community, the very grime
of society. Debased in the eyes of those
they knew, they would have to work incessantly to earn back their respect,
their rightful place in the eyes of others.
It may have been too much for the young couple, who brought nothing of
this upon themselves. No one believed them,
however. For a young man and his then-pregnant
lover, it was complete and utter chaos.
The townsfolk, meanwhile, paid tribute to the
Emperor—a man who lived over a thousand miles away. They were in captivity, torn between the world
they saw and the world they once knew.
Oppressed by a foreign people whom they knew so little about, some had
begun to join the oppressor—collecting overstated taxes for both the Empire and
their own personal gain. It was
politics; it was graft, and corruption—a breakdown of society and sound
governance. Such was the dismal
situation of the hopeless people of this colony. Security was a luxury, and justice a
rarity. Chaos.
And this—this is the story of Christmas. It is one of living in fear, and living
without direction. It is the story of
damaged reputations and unexpected events.
It is the story of rejection, turmoil, and uncertainty. It is the story of all of us.
It is here that we find that the message of
Christmas is not so much one of peace, or of happiness, but more so of
abounding hope; for in the midst of the bedlam of the first Christmas, hope was
born into the world; a hope that springs not in prosperity or comfort, but in
the little vices, and shame, the frustrations and disappointments—in the chaos
of our lives. For hope, we find,
describes an outlook, not a situation.
Every gift, every restored friendship, and every helping hand is a step
in that direction we envision. We can
see the chaos, and we can see the fear—but Christmas reminds us that above all
there is hope, for we hold the power to change what we now see.
“Hope is the only thing stronger than
fear.” – Suzanne Collins, “The Hunger Games”
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