Friday
On December 21—the darkest night of the year—Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a very Advent message to the American Congress. Advent includes both an acknowledgement of our grim present and the promise of a transcendent future, and the Ukrainian president touched on both.
On the one hand, Zelensky pointed to Russia’s assault on Ukrainian civilians—and as if we needed further confirmation, the New York Times has just published new information about the Russian paratroopers who carried out wholesale slaughter in Bucha last spring. On the other hand, Zelensky reminded Americans of the higher ideals, which led them to stand up against the British in the 1770s and against the Nazis in the 1940s.
Some of the best Christmas poems are those which look at the grim times in which Jesus was born. Given the Bucha slaughter, my father’s poem “Witness” is very timely. In it, one of Herod’s soldiers refuses to participate in the slaughter of the innocents, which was to include Jesus.
Witness
By Scott Bates
When it came down from HQ
The order to shoot the kids
We were stunned I mean really rocked
And I remember saying
Jesus we can’t do that and some of us
Felt like walking out but you don’t do that
In the army you don’t quit without a court-martial
So that was it we had to do it
And a lot of us did and it got very messy
And not pretty at all but we had to follow orders
You got to have discipline or you can’t do anything
Except me I couldn’t bring myself to do it
I couldn’t explain it I knew I was disobeying orders
Maybe it was because I have three kids myself and one
Of them is under two so when I found these poor people
Hiding in a barn with a new baby I couldn’t do it
I sure as hell couldn’t do it
I told them to cool it hit the road take off
For Egypt or somewhere and fast and not go back for anything
I took off pretty fast myself because the rest of the patrol
Was coming back and I would have got it for insubordination
And no questions asked bothers I would have had it
I mean for good
But I’m not sorry
I’m not sorry at all
He was a cute kid
I hope they made it
Meanwhile, at a time when almost three million Ukrainians have fled their country, Malcolm Guite’s sonnet “Refugee” reminds us that Jesus too was a refugee when his family fled the slaughter. Both poems put us in mind of the true Christmas spirit.
Refugee
By Malcolm Guite
We think of him as safe beneath the steeple,
Or cosy in a crib beside the font,
But he is with a million displaced people
On the long road of weariness and want.
For even as we sing our final carol
His family is up and on that road,
Fleeing the wrath of someone else’s quarrel,
Glancing behind and shouldering their load.
Whilst Herod rages still from his dark tower
Christ clings to Mary, fingers tightly curled,
The lambs are slaughtered by the men of power,
And death squads spread their curse across the world.
But every Herod dies, and comes alone
To stand before the Lamb upon the throne.