My friend, Jeff Berryman, wrote a most intriguing play called “Return to Bethlehem.” He proposes the idea of a return visit to Bethlehem by Jesus when he was thirty years old. Only in Berryman’s dramatic piece, Jesus doesn’t receive a hero’s welcome. In fact, he’s not even called by his own name. Instead he meets a bunch of older women who only refer to him as “the child of the census.”
In this fictional account, Jesus’ homecoming is unfriendly because these are the very women who had lost their sons decades ago in the slaughter of the innocents by King Herod. When they see Jesus, all they can visualize are their own sons who should have been his age and still living in Bethlehem.
In this unusual twist of thought, Berryman proposes the quandary of the women. Why is Jesus alive rather than their sons? If truth were told, their sons would have still been alive if Jesus hadn’t been born. What was so special about Jesus? Was his life really better than their own sons? To put it bluntly, their sons gave their lives simply because Jesus was born. Was he worth it?
Indeed, what is so special about Jesus? Many around the world today equate the coming of Jesus with holy wars and hatred. Was his advent truly worth the division he has caused? Why is his life better than anyone else’s?
And the truth is this–his life was better than anyone who has ever lived. But it is difficult to see this reality in the midst of a person’s pain, especially if it is your own grief. And it is hard to see how his life is worth it in the middle of all the divisions and wars if you can’t visualize the eternal perspective.
But that is why we put in the good word for Jesus. The good word is the complete word. It’s the eternal word. It’s the word that can even bring hope to the mother who has lost her son. It’s the word that can even bring the dead baby to life again. For ultimately, Jesus himself was born to die. And he gave his life so those very babies could live again. He lived thirty years longer than the other babies, but in those thirty years, he brought salvation to every one of them. His redemption doesn’t remove all the immediate afflictions in a person’s life. But no one knew the pain of those mothers more than the man of sorrows. And no one loved them more than the man familiar with suffering.
This holiday season may be filled with some grief and pain for you. Not all visits to Bethlehem are filled with jubilant choruses of angels. But I hope you can remember that no one understands your hurt more than Jesus. And no one loves you more than Jesus. And no one has done more to help with your ultimate pain than the child of the census. If you have let him slip away from your Bethlehem because of your wound or anger, won’t you invite him to return?
That’s what I love about Jeff – he never chooses the easy questions to write a play about. Yet the answer(s) always come to the same endpoint – Jesus.