The Violent Nature of Christmas

Photo by Joshua Fuller

There's some unique language thrown around in theological circles that can go a long way in helping us understand the nature of God and God's activity in the world. One of my favorites is irruption. It is also a particularly "Adventy" type of word. I simply cannot hear, say, or type it without it forming an image in my head. It immediately sparks my imagination, igniting divine expectation.

Irruption is not inherently theological but does evoke a clear theological picture. You likely have some idea of its meaning already due to its close relationship with its more commonly known counterpart, "eruption." It is its inverse. Whereas an eruption is a sudden bursting out from within, irruption is a sudden bursting in from without—an "Adventy" word indeed.

God's irruption into the cosmos, into our world, and our affairs is a favorite theme of the Old Testament Prophets. It is what they mean when they talk about the "Day of the Lord." We often see these descriptions as judgmental, wrathful depictions of a vengeant God. 

This is where the description of God's coming as an irruption can be so helpful. God's arrival to come and set all things right is sudden and powerful. When God wills, God breaks in from without and immediately establishes justice and peace. If caught on the wrong side of things, this suddenness presents as violent. Not violent in the sense that God uses force to cause physical harm and strong-arm things. But violent the way a thunderclap is violent, or a storm surge is violent—silence becomes a roar, coastlines are reshaped. God's presence moves and changes things. 

We see this perhaps most clearly in John the Baptist, the last prophet before Christ's coming. John's witness was to God's irruption into the world. This helps us see why John uses such violent language, "Even now the ax is laid at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." (Matt. 3:10) "One is coming who will baptize you with fire! His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." (Luke 3:16b-17)

But you also find it on the lips of Jesus, "I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division!" (Luke 12:49-51)

The idea of God's coming as an irruption into the world helps us see what the Prophets, John and Jesus, are getting at. When God comes, everything is one way, and suddenly in the blink of an eye, it is now another. This is what it means for God to bring justice, to bring healing and wholeness. It is a sudden change, an effective change. Suddenly and powerfully, the landscape of things is transformed.

God's irruption inevitably means destruction—the destruction of death, evil, injustice, oppression, sin, all of it. The radical shift signals the sweeping reign of God. It is the light piercing and driving out the darkness. Mary understands this (Luke 1:51-53). You also can't help but think of John's apocalyptic vision from Jesus. The book we know as Revelation.

And now we can better get our minds around the nature of repentance and why it was a favorite concept of these same prophets. In Hebrew and Greek, repentance means turning around and going the other way. In doing so, we avoid the violent collision of God's coming. We begin to move in the same direction as God and God's coming reign. Perhaps this is one reason Jesus teaches us to pray, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Yes, to beg God to usher in the divine reign of love and peace, but also to help us begin to truly desire and live into that reign right now. Perhaps this prayer helps us get on the same page as God. Maybe it helps us repent.

But in fact, you and I have already seen and experienced the violent irruption of God. The birth of Jesus was God's sudden and surprising breaking into the cosmos from outside of it. The subtle nature of this "Day of the Lord" did not make it any less sudden or disruptive. The irony is that the power of God was displayed in the non-violent nature of Jesus' birth. All we value, recognition, wealth, excess, security, power, and certainty were immediately undermined and undone by how God burst into our darkness to destroy sin and death. The violence done to darkness was in the absolute humility, weakness, poverty, and yes, non-violent passivity in which God came. How could one ever stand on the side of power, might, violence (in the way we typically think of it), and wealth and claim it is the side of God ever again. In this one move, so much of how we posture and orient our lives was unraveled. This is the judgment of God. This is Christmas.

Yet, we can go even further. Because Jesus does not stand distantly in time and space confronting us from the pages of history. Instead, the risen lord surprisingly and suddenly irrupts into our very self, staking His claim on our hearts.

When I taught in the classroom, the question of why miracles don't happen more often, if at all, was one of the more common ones. I suggested that they do, every day, in fact. My response was always somewhat dissatisfying to students, and it is sometimes dissatisfying to me as well. But this disappointment betrays something about our perception of things. In a sense, it betrays our blindness.

Faith is the supernatural medaling of God. Call it conversion, call it rebirth, call it new life. What we mean is Jesus has brought our dead souls back to life. I do not mean this in some symbolic way. I mean that Jesus actually and supernaturally brings our dead inner selves to life. Jesus takes us who are dead and makes us alive (Rom. 8:11). We experience resurrection (at least in part) right now.

Faith in Jesus is nothing less than Jesus breaking into our inner selves and making us living testimonies of God's irruption into the world. He has set up residence within us and is arranging the furniture as He sees fit. In this, we are remade–supernaturally, suddenly, and powerfully. God has entered into the cosmos, our world, and our very hearts. Martin Luther says it this way, "Therefore see to it that you do not treat the Gospel only as history, for that is only transient; neither regard it only as an example, for it is of no value without faith. Rather, see to it that you make this birth your own and that Christ be born in you." 

As we near Christmas day, we do not believe that God has merely done something in history, though God has. Nor do we simply believe that God has shown us what God is like and what we should be like, though this too God has done. Instead, we believe that God has miraculously and violently snatched us from the kingdom of darkness, seating us at the table of His kingdom of glorious light. We've yet to see this kingdom fully, but we taste it now, even in the darkness, and it is beautiful and bright.

Advent teaches us to remember that God has irrupted into the world and will one day do so again. But we know this because God has already irrupted into our inner beings. The Day of the Lord has dawned on our hearts.

We no longer walk in darkness but are children of the light. 

Amen.

Join us Christmas Eve at 5pm & 11pm as we gather together to worship and rejoice in celebration of Jesus’ coming into the world.

We've created a playlist to accompany you on your prayer and reflection during Advent. The songs are meant to speak to yearning, dissatisfaction, and Jesus' second coming. You can find it here.