How can we celebrate the joys of Christmas in the midst of such a broken world?

This week leading up to Christmas has been utterly incongruous. Celebrations have been marred by news of the atrocious terror attack in Berlin, when a lorry was driven into crowds at a Christmas market in a repeat of the Bastille Day attack in Nice, this time killing 12 and injuring 48. Meanwhile, decorations and festivities have felt almost inappropriate as tens of thousands are being evacuated from Aleppo.

For those of us who celebrate Christmas, particularly with a desire to rejoice in the birth of the Son of God, how do we do so in view of a shaking, hurting world? Should we be indulging whilst others are suffering?

Rejoicing Amidst Suffering

I was led today to research some of the carols we sing at Christmastime. I have duly discovered that, like most great hymns, many of these were written by men and women of faith in challenging circumstances. They were inspired in the midst of struggle and strife to pen words about the hope offered to us by Jesus our Lord.

Refugees from Aleppo arrive at a camp near Idlib, Syria. AP/Press Association Images.

As such, these carols that we all know so well are far more than profound words set to beautiful music, to be sung for the sake of tradition. They have stories, emerging from turmoil and trial and speaking back to it. They are enduring reminders of the hope of the Gospel - particularly of its proclamation of life and light in the face of violence, fear and darkness.

Some Examples: Songs Born of Trial¹

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day was penned during the American Civil War by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Henry's son was a lieutenant in the Unionist army who had been severely wounded fighting in Virginia. Longfellow wrote the words as a poem on Christmas Day, 1863, emphasising the Gospel's promise of hope for peace amidst the trials of war.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
'God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.'

Also during the American Civil War, O Little Town of Bethlehem was written by American bishop Phillips Brooks in Massachussetts. Brooks wrote the carol after a visit to the Holy Land in 1865, where he found such peace compared to the horrors of war back home that he was deeply moved.

No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.

A few years earlier, in 1849, It Came Upon the Midnight Clear was penned – also in Massachusetts, this time by preacher Edmund Sears. Sears was a burnt-out pastor who, at the time, was extremely depressed about the state of the world, with news of revolution in Europe and recent war on his home territory between the US and Mexico.

And man, at war with man, hears not the love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing.

Across the pond, As with Gladness Men of Old came through English insurance broker William Chatterton Dix in 1859. During his 20s Dix was struck with ill-health and depression – and wrote many of his best-loved hymns during this time.

Holy Jesus, every day, keep us in the narrow way;
And when earthly things are past, bring our ransomed souls at last
Where they need no star to guide, where no clouds Thy glory hide.

More than a century earlier, Joy to the World was written (1719) by English pastor and prolific hymn-writer Isaac Watts. Watts came from a non-conformist family used to being chastised for their beliefs. Joy to the World is based on the second half of Psalm 98, and was actually written to glorify Jesus' Second Coming, rather than to celebrate his first! Its lesser-sung third verse states:

No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow, far as the curse is found...

Perhaps most pertinent to the times in which we now live is Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus, for which we have Charles Wesley to thank. Wesley, who also gave us Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, wrote Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus in 1744 after meditating on Haggai 2:7 and being particularly moved by the plight of orphans in his area. As with Joy to the World, this carol was intended to help people use Christmas to prepare for the Second Coming of Jesus, as well as to commemorate the First.

Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee.
Israel's strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art;
dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart.

A Cloud of Witnesses

So, it seems that there is not necessarily such a stark gap between our Christmas celebrations and this world of strife after all.

Those who have gone before us, who form part of the great cloud of witnesses (Heb 12:1), found a way to rejoice in the midst of difficulty. Their joy was not unthinking, selfish or insensitive – in fact, it was the more profound and laudable because they understood the glorious truth of Emmanuel, God with us, meeting and rescuing us in our brokenness, bringing light to our darkness.

The carols we sing at Christmas have stories - many emerged from turmoil and trial and speak back to it even today.

A Light Has Dawned

The tragedy that has unfolded through the history of humankind is this: we have been given a choice between light and darkness - but all too often we choose the darkness (as the terrible destruction of life in Berlin this week demonstrates vividly).

John's account of the birth of Jesus, so often read at Christmastime, states "In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it" (John 1:5).

Towards the end of his life, Moses said to the people of Israel "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live!" (Deut 30:19). The festival of Christmas once again presents us with that same choice. Today, in the face of such reckless and evil destruction, our loving Father God urges us to choose life.

If we choose life, the Lord Jesus, who is the Light of the World, can dwell in us, transform us and shine out through us to others. The trials of this world, though grievous, will not overcome us but will instead be turned for good by the loving hand of the Lord.

Back to Christmas

Let us then respond to our first question – how can we celebrate this Christmas whilst others are suffering? Well, if we choose life and pursue it, selfish indulgence with flagrant disregard for the plight of others simply won't be a part of our lives. Instead, we will find ourselves experiencing a deeper kind of rejoicing – a thoughtful, loving and faithful jubilation that is not blind to suffering (indeed, quite the opposite), but is fixed first upon hope – in Jesus' death, resurrection and soon return – as the true and only solution to all the world's evils.

If we choose life, it may well be (and it is my hope) that this century will yet see its Wesleys and its Watts, its Whitefields and its Spurgeons, using Christmas to rejoice, to draw near God and to bring the light of life to millions. Who knows – the era of inspired carol-writing may not yet be over!

References

1 Carol information gleaned largely from Wikipedia, from which individual referencing information can be obtained. Also recommended is Christmas Carols by Andrew Gant (2014, Profile Books), a secular book which covers the historical origins of a broad selection of Christian and non-Christian Christmas songs.

Persecution for faith is nothing new. Here is a reminder of a festival birthed from persecution of God's people that Jesus himself celebrated in winter time - Hanukkah: festival of lights.

Origins of Hanukkah

Like Christmas, Hanukkah is not a biblical festival. Its roots lie in the period between the writing of the Old and New Testaments. The only reference to it in the Bible is in John 10, where we read that Jesus celebrated the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah in Hebrew) referring to the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its desecration.

About 200 BC, a Syrian king, Antiochus Epiphanes, ruled part of Alexander the Great's former empire, including Judea (modern day Israel). He outlawed Jewish practice and massacred Jews who refused to obey. He looted the Temple in Jerusalem and sacrificed pigs on the altar, an outrage to God's people since pigs are seen as unclean in the Law of Moses. In 167 BC, he ordered an altar to Zeus to be erected in the Temple, which Daniel the prophet described as the "abomination that causes desolation" (Dan 9:27).

Jesus also used this term (Matt 24:15; Mark 13:14), while predicting the later Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 AD (as biblical prophecy can have more than one fulfilment, this term may also apply to a future time).

Resistance to Persecution

One priestly family resisted this persecution, its most famous son being Judah Maccabee (a name derived from the Hebrew word for hammer). In 164 BC, the Maccabees reclaimed the desecrated Temple. However, priestly service could not resume until the Temple was cleansed and rededicated to God. One small jar of uncontaminated oil remained, but it was only enough to last for one day. They lit the menorah, the huge seven-branched golden Temple candelabra, and by a miracle it stayed alight for eight days, by which time a new supply of purified oil was ready.

To commemorate this miracle, Jewish people celebrate the Festival of Hanukkah for eight days. Each day, using a special candelabra called a Hanukiah with nine stems, they light the prominent shamash or servant candle and this is used to light the others in turn (going from right to left like Hebrew text), one candle on the first day, two on the second, and so on.

Light of the World

At Christmas we often read John 1, verse 9 of which says, "the true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world". Jesus is that light, the shamash or servant flame, laying down his life and lighting the lives of those who approach him humbly in repentance and faith. In Acts 2:47, we read of the young church that "the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved."

Each day, new souls all over the world are lit up by the transforming light of Jesus the Messiah, just as each night of Hanukkah one more candle is set aflame on the Hanukiah. Once we have been set alight, we must guard that flame and turn to Jesus daily so that our lives are sustained by the blaze of his Spirit.

Clifford Hill discusses the recent hacking of Ashley Madison, the renowned adultery website.

Older readers will remember the saying "cheats never prosper". Perhaps the 39 million people who signed up to the Canada-based Ashley Madison website should have thought about this before putting their emails and their personal details onto the site that guaranteed them privacy. That privacy has now been brutally torn asunder and a generation of adulterers is facing the reality of their secret sexual encounters being exposed, not only to their partners but also to the world.

Untold Consequences

The Ashley Madison website, with its strapline "Life is short. Have an affair", guaranteed complete secrecy to its clients until hackers succeeded in breaking through the site's security. After failing to persuade the owners of Ashley Madison to close down their operation, they first made the hacked information available on the dark internet, but it very quickly went viral. The consequences of this may be serious not only in endangering many marriages, but even putting lives at risk in countries where adultery and homosexuality are capital offences, such as Saudi Arabia.

The Ashley Madison scandal will not only endanger marriages, but could cause further oppression via blackmail and even put lives at risk.

The exposure of the infidelity site is not only threatening to break up marriages and other relationships of trust; the information could be used by blackmailers and others who wish to cause harm to rivals and competitors. A number of the emails that have been published are said to have Government addresses, which could mean that civil servants or MPs are at risk of public exposure of their infidelities.

Unprecedented Scale

Of course, adulterous affairs are not new to this generation and history is full of them, but what makes this latest exposure unique is the sheer scale of those who responded to the opportunity for a clandestine sexual relationship, in the belief that there was complete confidentiality. As a result they not only gave personal details including names, credit card numbers, sexual fantasies and preferences, but some even included nude photographs.

The development of internet dating sites has created the opportunity for unlimited infidelity, plus the offer of casual sex with the promise of availability, anonymity and affordability. This has clearly proved a temptation that millions of people have been unable to resist. In the 14 years that Ashley Madison has been in existence, it has garnered a staggering 39 million clients willing to risk the trust of those who are closest to them (1 million of these clients are said to be based in Britain).

The internet has created the opportunity for unlimited infidelity - clearly a temptation that millions have been unable to resist.

The first step was internet sites that simply offered introductions and dating opportunities, but this soon progressed to more carnal activities with sites such as Grindr offering gay and bisexual relationships. But this has been dwarfed by the massive response of heterosexuals seeking adulterous affairs.

Cross-sector Exposure

The exposure of cheating is not confined to adultery; sport is another recent activity to come under the spotlight, with first cycling and now athletics facing widespread charges of medals having been won by the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Lord Coe, the newly-elected head of world athletics (International Association of Athletics Federations) has vowed to clean up the sport, but it may take a long time to root out all the cheats.

Similar soul-searching is running through the banking sector, revealing cheating on a massive scale in the rigging of the Libor rate. Banks are facing heavy fines for the actions of their dishonest employees who made millions of dollars and pounds for themselves and their shareholders.

As the searchlight of truth is turned onto one institution after another, the sheer scale of cheating being exposed is breathtaking. It is only a generation ago that cheating was considered to be one of the most heinous of sins in sport, in exams, in business and especially in marriage and family life. Cheating sportsmen were drummed out of their sport: cheating students were expelled from school or university: cheating businessmen were thrown out of their employment and cheating in marriage was universally condemned.

The sheer scale of cheating being exposed is breathtaking. Only a generation ago, cheating was considered to be one of the most heinous of sins – whether in sport, education, business or family life.

Crumbled Foundations

So what's gone wrong with Western society today? Surely there can only be one reason why this should happen in nations with a long-standing Judaeo-Christian heritage, where biblical standards of honesty have been the cornerstone of business life and personal behaviour for centuries. The answer has to be that we have abandoned the Bible as the foundation stone of Western civilisation. The result, ultimately, is moral anarchy – everyone making up their own personal ethics, with little care for the lives of those closest to them and no care at all for the good of wider society.

The sad truth is that most children and young people under the age of 30 have little or no knowledge of biblical principles of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, so they have no plumb-line of truth for judging personal or social behaviour. Unless there is a moral and spiritual revival and a re-discovery of the Christian faith and its values, things can only get worse. At the present rate of secularisation we face a virtual collapse of family life, which will be followed by the inevitable breakdown of social order.

Grace and Truth

In light of this drastic outlook, how can we respond to the Ashley Madison scandal? It's easy to point the finger at others while ignoring our own faults. The teaching of the New Testament is that "no immoral, impure or greedy person has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God" (Eph 5:5). So our first reaction ought to be to examine ourselves to ensure that we live as children of the light, which means not only exposing deeds of darkness but also being those who uphold righteousness and truth in every situation. If we truly live as followers of Jesus we should be radiating love and goodness to those around us.

Our first reaction ought to be to examine ourselves to ensure that we live as children of the light, which means not only exposing deeds of darkness but also being those who uphold righteousness and truth in every situation.

We ought also to be praying for those whose lives are being shattered by the exposure of their names on the Ashley Madison website. Pray for forgiveness in their marriages and the healing of relationships so that good comes out of evil. Especially pray for the children caught up in broken family relationships. Only God can bring healing, love, forgiveness and true repentance out of our human tragedies. Let's ask the Father to reach out to those in need and transform their lives.