In 1906, two chubby twins – a boy and a girl – were born to a prominent middle-class family in Breslau, Germany. It was a big family with eight kids, and they were a tight-knit clan. Their father was a distinguished professor of neurology and psychiatry at a well-known university, and when the young boy showed signs of an unusual intellect early on, most expected the young boy to follow his father into an academic career. As could be expected, his dad was quite proud – though because he was German, he was hardly one to gush.
But two world wars and the demonic insanity of Adolf Hitler ravaged Germany, and left the father’s dreams in tatters. Three of his sons and one son-in-law would be dead. He was not shocked – he knew the high risks of being a soldier in wartime, much less those of the plot two of the boys were involved in against their own leader. But knowing the cost and bearing it are two very different things.
When I read the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer – the theologian son of a renowned psychiatrist – I can’t help but wonder what his dad thought. He knew when Dietrich spurned safe employment at a seminary in America that his son was on a collision course with the ruthless Nazis. But he also knew that what his son was doing was right, that it was necessary.
When he heard Dietrich’s funeral broadcast in 1945, shortly after the war’s end, how did Karl Bonhoeffer reconcile the very reasonable and noble sacrifice his son made with the pain that only a parent can feel?
It’s questions like this that I don’t like to think too much about at Christmas. What was God thinking on that “Silent Night” as He watched His Son – his one and only Son – lying there in a feed trough, as a vulnerable and helpless newborn? Setting aside the obvious theological knots of how the Trinity works, what went through God’s mind as He pondered the path His Son was on? After all, it was no surprise to God when Herod executed all the male babies in the tiny hamlet of Bethlehem in an attempt to murder God’s Son. It didn’t catch Him off guard when the Pharisees tried to stone Jesus, or when the Romans finally beat him and nailed Him to a cross. He knew this is what needed to be done, that this was the necessary cost of salvation, the only way humanity could be escape their self-made disaster.
And what of Joseph? He was a simple man, a blue collar handyman. He knew how tools worked, and was probably a whole lot more comfortable with wood and a chisel than with the abstract theological concepts of the scribes in the Temple. But he knew this baby boy was special – the angels and visions left no doubt about that. What went through Joseph’s mind as he cradled his baby boy in his arms that first night? What hopes and dreams did he have for this, his first-born son? Did he have any idea what lay ahead for the little boy?
This Christmas, as I watch my own little girls play, I’ve tried to ask myself, what if I knew that God’s plan for one or both of them would mean amazing things for hurting people? What if He wanted to do amazing things like use them to bring justice and safety for the vulnerable here on earth, or maybe to bring His salvation to so many of the lost souls without hope of anything beyond this short life? I want my girls to dream of doing big things like that! But what if I somehow knew that it would cost my beautiful little girl her life to accomplish it?
This is why manger scenes cause me a lot of emotional turmoil. It’s a tender moment – a young mother, holding her firstborn infant son. A young father, so amazed at the strength of his wife in childbirth, carefully cradling his little boy, scared of how fragile the little one is. Hanging over that idyllic scene, though there’s a dark shadow, because we know the painful future ahead for this little family.
Christmas is just a few days away, and amid all the stress and busy-ness of trying get it all together in time, I’m struggling to make sense of the conflicting emotions of that manger scene. The love of God the Father for the rebellious humans – the same ones His Son had spoken into being along with the rest of Creation – meant that His Son willingly left heaven to suffer for them, and ultimately to save many of them. This was necessary. Jesus had to become human and die, so that we could have life. And I can only imagine the conflicted emotions of heaven on that first Christmas Eve.
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