BEING HUMAN

Day 7, 7 December 2024, the 1018th day of the full-scale war.

Different lights pierce the darkness over Ukraine through these 1,018 days: not the star of Bethlehem, but the glow of incoming missiles and kamikaze drones and anti-aircraft fire. Our nights echo with sirens and explosions and the cries of the wounded rather than with angelic choirs. How do we sing about a silent night when terror has been our nightly companion for almost three years?

“Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them… And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God” (Luke 2:8–9, 13, NKJV).

While Bethlehem slept, cosmic history unfolded on its outskirts. The town’s inhabitants rested undisturbed while Mary’s labor cries pierced the darkness of a stable, a preview of the greater pain to come, and their peaceful slumber would later be shattered by Rachel’s weeping, when Herod’s soldiers turned cradles into graves. The world today mirrors that pattern: Ukrainian cities echo with grief, as do other cities in other war zones, while much of the world sleeps on, undisturbed by a distant suffering.

That first Christmas night was not in fact silent, with angels splitting the sky and shepherds scrambling across fields. And we have sanitized that holy chaos into a comfortable lullaby, forgetting that the Word entered our world in tumult rather than in tranquility, amid displacement and imperial oppression. Just as the night over Bethlehem merged a celestial proclamation with terrestrial chaos, our own fractured nights do not negate the presence of Emmanuel. They echo the paradox of a divine entry into ordinary human chaos.

When air-raid alerts force Ukrainians into shelters or behind two walls, we mirror those shepherds keeping watch by night. Our contemporary heralds, the sirens, unwanted as they are, serve as a wake-up call for a slumbering world and not only for us. And just as Bethlehem’s peaceful night preceded its darkest hour, the world’s selective silence in the face of this aggression echoes that ancient pattern of comfortable ignorance before a catastrophe.

When missile trajectories replace the path of a Christmas star, our mission becomes the embrace of disruption as a legitimate space for ministry. Rather than searching for a prewar tranquility, we look for divine presence inside the cacophony of a war. In basement shelters, in communities that gather despite the danger, we embody the shalom of Christ amid chaos. Like Mary treasuring the mysteries of heaven, we hold terror and hope together, violence and a vision of just peace.

The world faces a choice: to wake up to the reality of evil, or to keep sleeping until Rachel’s cries grow too loud to ignore. Our broken windows and wailing sirens are both a testimony and a warning to those still sleeping through humanity’s newest dark hour. What is happening in Ukraine is not about Ukraine. It is about a world that may have no silent nights left at all.

Prince of Peace, who entered the chaos of Bethlehem, enter our shattered nights now. Turn our sirens into angel songs and our missile flashes into gleams of starlight and hope. Wake a slumbering world before Rachel’s cries echo once more. When peace seems impossible, help us remember that You came not to a silent night but to a world as fractured as our own. Make us bearers of Your peace, which passes understanding. In the name of Jesus Christ, Lord of our broken nights. Amen.