BEING HUMAN

Day 18, 18 December 2024, the 1029th day of the full-scale war.

While bishops in russia bless a war and an imperial religion claims to protect traditional Christian values, while cathedrals there echo with prayers for the victory of the Russian World, another narrative draws our attention: an ancient pattern in which divinity shuns the gilded halls of power for shepherds’ fields. As religious authorities rush to sanctify an ideology, perhaps true holiness still moves among the vulnerable rather than the violent. Perhaps divine presence manifests still in conquered peoples rather than in conquering armies, through those who suffer under a power rather than through those who claim it. Could heaven’s authentic voice still whisper in Ukrainian trenches and bomb shelters, in makeshift sanctuaries behind two walls, in prayers whispered under two pillows?

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting” (Micah 5:2, NKJV).

Bethlehem’s story in the Bible begins with grief rather than glory. Here Rachel, for whom Jacob endured fourteen years of labor, died giving birth, and her last breath marked an insignificant town with sorrow. Her grave beside a dusty road seemed an unlikely beginning for holy ground, and her tears soaked into soil that would later receive both humanity’s darkest evil and its brightest hope. In dying she unknowingly consecrated the earth that would cradle the Messiah, and her weeping would echo again when Herod’s soldiers turned the cradles of that town into coffins, one mother’s private grief expanding into a chorus of maternal sorrow.

Generations later this same grief-hallowed ground witnessed redemption through another unlikely pair. Ruth, a widowed Moabite from a nation under a curse, gleaned in the fields where Rachel had died. Boaz, risking inheritance and reputation, chose love over convention. Their union defied ethnic barriers and religious prejudice, weaving another strand into a subversive tapestry, and in fields first watered by Rachel’s tears, Ruth’s devotion flowered into hope.

Then came David’s anointing, which shattered human expectation. While the authorities looked for impressive candidates, God’s eye fell on a shepherd boy, the youngest son, easily overlooked, smelling of sheep. From the town where Rachel died and Ruth gleaned, the smallest son became Israel’s greatest king, with a complicated character and a complicated life. And even his line to the Messiah would run through unlikely choices, since Bathsheba, whose marriage began in scandal, bore Solomon, who would build the temple. Divine purpose worked through human brokenness.

The pattern culminated in Joseph and Mary, ordinary people from a despised town, and the question of whether anything good could come out of Nazareth was asked openly (John 1:46), compelled by an imperial decree to travel to Bethlehem. No power marked them for greatness and no authority sanctioned their role. And in the shadows of a stable, where animals were fed, God entered human flesh. The town first marked by Rachel’s death now witnessed the entrance of life itself, and ground consecrated by a mother’s grief now cradled a birth that would transform all sorrow.

Today, as grand cathedrals bless imperial ambition and religious power sanctifies oppression, this pattern speaks to our reality. While mighty institutions claim divine favor, authentic faith often manifests in unlikely places: basement shelters in Kharkiv where communities pray, fields near Kherson where farmers risk death to sow, hospitals in Zaporizhzhia where doctors work by flashlight. And each of these biblical figures paid a cost for an unlikely choice. Rachel died. Ruth left her own people. David faced persecution from Saul. Mary and Joseph fled as refugees. Through that costly obedience, divine purpose advanced.

It seems that being overlooked by the powerful protectors of traditional religious values is a prerequisite for divine purpose rather than a barrier to it. As an empire’s religion claims God’s sanction more and more loudly, may we remember the pattern of Bethlehem: real divine presence manifests through vulnerability rather than might, in stables rather than palaces, through pain rather than power.

Prince of Peace, open our eyes to Your subversive presence. When empires claim Your name and Your authority, help us recognize Your true face in unlikely places and unlikely people. Turn our vulnerability into a channel of Your grace and of the mission that has not changed. Like Rachel’s tears that consecrated the soil of Bethlehem, may our present grief prepare ground for Your glory. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord who turns graves into gardens and sorrow into joy. Amen.