Walking Towards the Light
A Interspiritual Holiday Exploration
Jean-Thomas Bédard
I recently saw a collage of images depicting families of refugees - a man, a woman, a small child/ren - from around the world, fleeing with their few belongings to an unknown future. The caption beneath read, “Nativity 2024.” It was a gut punch that forced me to reflect not only on current events as we end the year, but also on some of the profoundly important - but often neglected - themes in the story of Jesus’ birth, which are echoed in all our winter holidays.
This year, Christmas, Hanukkah and Solstice are all very close together. From a Radical Spirituality perspective, therefore, it feels especially pertinent to explore these themes as we go forward into 2025.
A perfunctory glance at the news will tell you that during this holiday season, millions of people around the globe are living in darkness, bereft of hope, and desperately seeking shelter and safety from fear, tyranny, war, famine, flood, or other disasters. They, like the characters in the stories of Christmas and Hanukkah, are experiencing hardships that we gloss over in favor of the bright lights and tinsel.
So this year, I want to explore why those images of refugees I mentioned above are related to our celebrations by pulling focus to what might have happened before Christ was born (and just after) and what happened before the lights of Hanukkah were lit as a deeper dive into what the stories of the birth of Christ and the Maccabees (and the Solstice) might mean for us today.
Let’s start with Christmas, and the story of Mary, Joseph and Jesus. Why were Mary and Joseph traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem in the first place? According to the Gospel of Luke, Caesar had ordered a census so all people living in his empire could be counted and therefore, taxed. But, they could only be counted in their hometown (kind of like voting in the US). Joseph was registered in Bethlehem. So, he and Mary had to travel from where they were living in Nazareth to Bethlehem to fill out the forms.
But the journey was difficult and dangerous. Mary was heavily pregnant, and it’s an uphill hike into the Judean Hills from the lowlands of Nazareth. Moreover, there were bandits and thieves along the way, preying on travelers. Likely, they weren’t traveling alone, but in the company of others for safety, similar to the lines of refugees we see daily on the news.
When they arrived in Bethlehem, as the story goes, there were so many people in town that there was no place to stay. The only place they could find to shelter was a manger, and there, Mary gives birth. Then the wise men see the light of God and proclaim the Messiah has been born.
That’s the cover story. But, if you dig into the history, you discover that forcing people to move back to their hometowns for a “census” was Rome’s clever way of disrupting discontent and dispossessing people of their homes and livelihoods elsewhere: not too different from deportations or exhorting today’s groups of migrants to “go home.” It also would have been a way of determining how many able-bodied men could potentially fight against Rome. The Jews of Caesar’s empire weren’t exactly bowing down their colonizers, and Caesar would have been more than happy to either know how many enemies he had and/or punish them in some way. Besides, according to 1 Chronicles 21:1, this kind of thing had happened before: using the cover of a census for something evil.
Interestingly, however, there is no historical evidence of this supposed “census.” More likely, things were pretty dicey around that time for Jews in the greater Roman Empire. Rome occupied the land, and according to historic record, it wasn’t exactly peaceful: the people of Judea were getting fed up. In fact, it was a time of deep civil strife, and there was much dissent. Herod was also pretty brutal to the Jews. To put it in the context of the Biblical story, Mary and Joseph, Jews and descendants of King David, therefore potential enemies of Rome, may not have been safe in Nazareth. Going “home” to be around family and friends when you give birth might have been a decision made for protection. Safety in numbers.
It’s likely, then, that they went to visit relatives, but the guest room at the family house was taken because they didn’t call ahead. In fact, that’s the word used in the original text - “guest room.” Not an inn, but a busy family house (and, historically, Jews didn’t stay in Roman inns - not kosher). Left with no option, they had to find some place to bed down for the night. Since Jewish homes at the time kept animals on the ground floor of the house while the guest rooms were upstairs, they might have been offered space with the animals. So poor Joseph and Mary travel a long way through dangerous territory, looking for safety, only to be told to go sleep with the sheep.
There’s another version of this tale from the Book of Matthew that makes the whole scene even darker. It seems that Herod was pretty insecure - a mild understatement. He had murdered his wives, sons and others suspected of usurping him. Now he extended his paranoia to the general population, fearing the rise of a Hebrew leader that would overthrow him. So, he decreed that all male babies born in Judea within the last two years be killed.
It’s possible that this decree was made BEFORE Jesus was born and was already in effect when Mary is pregnant. That might be another reason the couple traveled to Bethlehem for protection. Regardless, after Mary gives birth to a baby boy, the couple and their newborn flee to Egypt to protect their son from Herod’s decree. They become refugees, and don’t return until after Herod dies.
We don’t know much about what happened to the Holy Family in Egypt, except that historically, there was a large Jewish community of former refugees (from the Babylonian Exile period) and even a temple at Memphis. It’s likely that they didn’t live a terrible life, but when they return, Jesus is said to have “come out of Egypt” to become the leader of a new nation of people. Sound familiar? Jesus becomes Moses in a Christian adaptation of Exodus (there are actually many echoes of Exodus in Jesus’ birth story, Egypt, the “Glory of the Lord,” killing of babies, refugees, etc.)
If we remember that Jesus, his parents, and all his followers and disciples were Jews, it makes sense that the story of Jesus’ birth and return as the Messiah is a retelling of Exodus. Moreover, historians actually think that Jesus was born in the Spring, and the family were traveling to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, the holiday that tells the Exodus story, which would make sense for a number of reasons and also explain why the Passover themes are built into Jesus’ birth story.
Nevertheless, as the original story tells us, it is only after a period of hardship that we can give birth to ourselves and freedom in a new way, become a sanctified people. Mary and Joseph had to have a hard journey, had to sleep in a manger, had to become refugees for something new to be born.
This is built into the language. The Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, means “narrow places,” and is a symbolic place of constriction and suffering. If we return to the image of Mary and Joseph (and Jesus) as refugees both in their own land and abroad, one can easily understand why they had to be in Egypt - a place of exile, a narrow, constricted way of life away from “home” - before they can see the light of freedom, and freedom only comes from the recognition of the Sacred. Remember that Jesus was to be named Immanuel - “God is with us.”
So just below the surface, Jesus’ birth story is a story of refugees; people exiled from their “homes,” caught in narrow places, seeking freedom and peace. It’s also a time when people became distant from God, caught in their own fears and greed. From a radical spiritual perspective, we are all refugees in our own Egypt until we come back “home” to the Sacred. Jesus’ birth, therefore, heralds the light of possibility, and the return to the Sacred, howsoever understood.
Returning to the images of refugees around the world as symbols, what does this tell us about our own times? Millions of people are exiled from their homes, living in fear or danger because of greed, hate and power - our narrow places - that separate us from the Divine. Greed, hate and power create war, environmental degradation, economic collapse and food insecurity, forcing people to suffer. Today’s refugees are living in an Egypt of our own construction.
Today’s refugees are living in an Egypt of our own construction.
How does this relate to Hanukkah (which, by the way, isn’t in the Five Books of Moses, but in the Apocrypha of the New Testament)? Reverse about 160 years, and the Jews are under the rule of the Greeks and Antiochus, the King of Syria, who, like Herod, is also drunk on greed and power. Antiochus forbids the celebration of Jewish festivals, destroys the temple in Jerusalem, and decrees that the Jews must convert to Greek-ism or be killed. Many Jews were murdered and others fled. They are in exile from their “home,” refugees in their own land. It’s a dark time.
The Maccabees were a resistance movement organized to oppose the Syrians, and after defeating the Syrian army in two decisive battles, they re-enter the temple. Among the ruble, the discover a small jar of oil. There is only enough oil to light the eternal lamp to rededicate the temple for one day, but miraculously, it burns for eight. The light has returned, the people can return to the light. Once again, there is birth, freedom from exile and darkness.
That’s the story. But, there’s more going on here. Historians tell us that the story of the Maccabees is played out on a world stage marked by internecine warfare among eastern Mediterranean Greek powers and the lurking rise of Roman power, and which will eventually result in the Jewish-Roman Wars and the dominance of the Roman Empire. Sound familiar? Global powers duking it out while innocent people suffer.
It was also during this time that many Jews decided that it was easier to convert to the Greek ways, and Jewish culture was dying out. The first book of the Maccabees (written by Jews, not Greeks) explains that there was internal strife between Jews who wanted to forgo the covenant in favor of assimilation, and those who wanted it upheld. It was a civil war. So, the Maccabees were really trying to reclaim the people of Israel to the covenant and their traditions, to bring them out of the darkness of exile, to return home. (Wasn’t Jesus trying to do the same thing?). Their success isn’t just in rekindling the lights in the temple, but in rekindling the light in the people.
So, both these stories - Jesus’ birth and the Maccabee Revolt - take place during times of political and civil strife. Both include people who are fleeing and fighting for their lives; both see people cut off from their relationship to Sacred; both describe the birth of something miraculous and new that brings light, life; both are stories that tell us how even in times of darkness, we must come back to the Sacred, to the light, to survive.
The Maccabees’ success isn’t just in rekindling the lights in the temple, but in rekindling the light in the people.
And lastly, Winter Solstice: from Dec 21, the light returns. The darkness of winter is receding and life can come back. Indigenous societies all had myths and celebrations around the Solstice and many indigenous stories echo the themes of Christmas and Hanukkah (which is why they are celebrated around Solstice): the defeat of the powers of darkness by the powers of light, the birth of a savior or of a new deity, or a deity that captures the sun/light and returns it to the sky, etc. (for a great list of solstice stories, check out http://www.solsticelady.com/menu).
Our very DNA is tied to the cycles of light and dark, and our consciousness yearns for a return to the light, both physically and spiritually. Our nature is to seek the light, the warmth, the comfort of home and hearth, life. That’s why we celebrate it and tell stories to help us remember that light and rebirth are possible by recognizing our relationship to the Sacred - God/Source/Ultimate Reality. It is only by coming back to the light, to the Sacred, that we are freed from suffering, darkness, and exile from our Divinity and reconnected the divinity that is everywhere.
This holiday season, let’s remember that even in the darkness, light can be re-born. Let’s celebrate the light and the possibility of joy, knowing that returning - coming home - to the Sacred is our hope for the future.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Solstice to all.
Lauryn, thanks for this post. :)
Thank you🙏 🌌✨