“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”
― Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith  

In the 1st century B.C., King Herod–also known as “Herod the Great”–ruled the Roman province of Judea as both a great and terrible leader. In the Gospel of Matthew, we read of his anger when he discovered that a Jewish messiah was born, a baby enthroned as “King of the Jews,” a title he’d claimed for himself during his 30-year reign. To ensure that this infant king was killed and would pose no threat to his own position, Herod issued the order to kill all male children under two years of age who lived in and around the region of Bethlehem. We know this tragedy today as the “Massacre of the Innocents.” This was a dark and frightening time during which Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt to protect their newborn son.

We tend to sanitize the nativity, placing a plump, white-faced Jesus in a sweet manger, surrounding him with adoring parents in humble, but clean clothes, and placing the whole lot of them–shepherds, sheep, cattle, wisemen–in and around a quaint and rustic stable that looks much like popular wedding venues today. We tend to focus on the light, so that we might keep the darkness at bay. And we hold fast to the peace, the love and joy of the nativity, keeping our fears tucked safely away.

For just as those in Judea were filled with fear so many years ago, we are, too. Our world is dark and darkening daily. Since that “Massacre of the Innocents” near Bethlehem, there have been–and continue to be–many such massacres. Today’s news looks as though it might’ve been taken as a page from Herod’s playbook. In truth, even as we celebrate Christmas–claiming the good news of Christ’s birth–we’re painfully aware that the world is a wolf, pacing outside our doors and waiting for its next meal.

I confess that as I finish this Advent series, a post about fear seems, perhaps, unnecessarily maudelin. And yet, I felt compelled to write it, for I believe that the complexity of the nativity is something we shouldn’t ignore. Frederick Buechner, American author and theologian, proclaims that beautiful and terrible things will happen in our world and insists that we shouldn’t be afraid. He seems to echo Jesus’ words in John 16:33: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” To live as a Christian is to embrace the reality of trouble, of terrible things that have happened and continue to happen. It’s also, however, to live with the assurance of beauty and hope that transcends this world. This tension between fear and hope, between the terrible and the beautiful is one with which most of us are all too familiar. And if we sometimes grieve the burden of this tension, we also begrudgingly acknowledge its necessity.

For years, I had a quote from Holocaust survivor, Gerda Weissman Klein taped to the wall above my desk at work:

Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present to me that night on a leaf. Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry, and you give it to a friend.

Klein’s words became a powerful metaphor for my life, as I imagined a world–dark and darkening–lit gloriously by a single act of generosity and beauty. Even as I struggle with my own fears for the world my grandchildren will inherit, I can imagine a world in which one raspberry could change everything. And I like to think that in the midst of their fears, Mary, Joseph, and so many others understood that Jesus was a single, miraculous gift that would change the world. I like to think that they, too, could imagine a world in which a father would make the greatest sacrifice for the greatest good.

Each morning as I walk at the Pioneer Ridge Nature Preserve, I round the corner of the first pond and stand–just for a few moments–to take in the eastern sky which seems to bloom, opening above the tree line in tangerine, aubergine, and rose. Every time is just as breath-taking as the last. I stand amazed that, in the midst of the world’s persistent darkness, there is light enough for this day. And light enough for the next.

I stand amazed that somewhere in the world, a friend is giving his entire possession to another, that a parent is sacrificing all for her child, that a bystander is intervening in a single act of courage and kindness. Against a backdrop of darkness and fear, these acts shine more brightly. Just as Christ’s birth did against this same backdrop of darkness and fear so many years ago. What we fear is real, but we can take heart at Christmas and always: Christ has overcome the world.