Christmas in Dark Times

‘Christmas in Dark Times’

Vassar Miller (1924-1998)

Christmas still comes in spite of death and taxes.

Or, rather, because of them, else why should God

Have become human? Surely when Heaven annexes

Itself to earth, this feat can be no odd

Whim of indulgence. All our careless moments

Spring up like green grass, all our loves and laughter

Burst forth like leaves and flowers in mild climates.

Our play, our feasts, our sex require a softer

Touch than the terrible assault of grace.

At natural births an angel’s an upstart.

The crib and cross of Christ are out of place,

Rocking the balance of the summer heart.

No blithe vacationer, God comes anew,

Seeing that death is what we have to do.

- From If I had Wheels or Love: Collected Poems of Vassar Miller (Dallas, 1991)

Thanks to the recommendation of Canon Judith Maltby, I have recently discovered the poetry of the American poet, Vassar Miller. Her poetry touches again and again on the mystery of the Incarnation, the Word of God taking on human life to live and die as one of us. In another poem, Without Ceremony, Miller speaks of our difficulty in capturing the extraordinary paradoxes at the heart of the mystery of the incarnation: ‘Oh Word, in whom our wordiness dissolves….’

The poem, Christmas in Dark Times, was read at the Carol Service this year. In this poem, Miller punctures the way our celebration of Christmas can sometimes be overwhelmed by a mawkish sentimentality and a kind of manufactured joy. The poem is perhaps not an easy read, but it helps us to see that the incarnation is ultimately about the promise of redemption. God embraces the fragility and vulnerability of being human - the difficult stuff, the sweat, the tears, the consequences of human sin. The poem perhaps reminds us that as we live ‘in dark times’, with war in Europe, conflict in the Holy Land, and the challenges caused by the cost of living crisis, the incarnation speaks of a God who relinquishes power and is found in the helpless and vulnerable body of a baby. Jesus is unprotected from human poverty and danger. God breaks down the distance and the difference between the divine and the human ‘when Heaven annexes itself to earth’. This is the mystery of God-with-Us, Emmanuel. And yet, God does not simply share in our humanity, he also transforms it. He does not come ‘in spite of death and taxes’ - he comes ‘because of them’. Vassar Miller reminds us that God ‘comes anew’ and alerts us to the profound joy at the heart of the gospel: God will make all things new.

With every blessing for Christmas,

The Revd Canon Dr William Lamb