Hope is a powerful but tenuous state, and the holidays can elicit strong, often competing feelings. Some find joy and promise in the season; others are filled with a bleak midwinter barrenness that is nearly impossible to shake.
People are not alone in this conflict. Research has shown the positive effects of holiday cheer and that others will sometimes have what has been called the holiday blues. There can be many reasons for people experiencing an emotional cloud dragging them down. Whether it’s loss of a loved one, financial difficulties, or not being able to experience the joyful events that happen between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, there can be a myriad of feelings between friends, family members, and sometimes even within oneself.
This holiday dichotomy reminds me of Eugene O’Neill’s play, “The Iceman Cometh.” The play is a dramatization of O’Neill’s pessimistic vision of the world as “a lodge of the misfortunate, of human life as a nightmare, and of death as the only way out.” It took him seven years to publish it because the bleakness of the drama made publishers hesitant to bring its dark message to the masses. In the drama, death is “the Iceman” who “cometh” for us all. One of the primary themes of the play is that people need a “life lie” to keep them going in the face of pain and suffering. Some equate O’Neill’s “life lie” with hope, a sentiment that optimists retain without much evidence to support it, but I think they are on to something. Hope can be a powerful antidote to despair.
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The story of Christmas has always stood as a bulwark against the finality of the Iceman’s coming. In the classic Christmas hymn “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” we sing:
“Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth;
Born to give them second birth.”
The promise the Christ child brings has always been the source of Christmas hope. Yet this hope has never been an “opiate for the people” or a “life lie” needed to endure life’s tragedies. Instead, it is the “evidence of things not seen”, known — not just felt — in the hearts and minds of people all over the world.
The birth of Jesus is not the only time this type of hope has been shared in the Bible. The Jewish people had practiced the expectation of hope for generations before the New Testament.
Hanukkah also conveys hope in a hopeless time. This eight-day celebration is a dedication to the hope and perseverance of the people of Israel. As Emuna Braverman points out, “the odds were certainly against the Maccabees” in their day, but they won and “brought light back into the world.” This light shines to this day, as “hope burns bright in the light of the Hanukkah oil. As the flames flicker higher, they ignite our souls and lift us all to the recognition of what could be — and what will be — and out of what is.”
Philosophy has also tried to address how hope can survive in times of bleakness. Author and philosopher Albert Camus tried to resolve the tension between hope and despair by calling them both “impostors” that must be doffed to live with the absurdity found in modern life. Perhaps there is a better way forward.
David, who is well known for his conflicting feelings of hope and despair, wrote in Psalm 42:5 (ESV), “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”
Then, in the New Testament, as young followers of Jesus continue to live out Jesus’s words, the apostle Paul shares in Romans 5:3-5, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts.”
This holiday season, as we sit at home watching Hallmark movies or join others in singing holiday classics, perhaps there’s one that captures all of the turbulent holiday emotions. Written in 1878, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” describes both darkness and light found there; hope and fear reside in the village’s ancient streets and all “are met in thee tonight.” These words that we have sung for decades describe the reality of life on earth, combining all our fears and sharing our hopes.
Bethlehem has become more than a physical place, an icon of hope that emerges from the jangle of holiday sentiments as a place of “wondering love” where “peace” reigns on earth. A place where we find a hope that transcends circumstances and the confusion and emptiness that each day can bring.
The obscurity of the nativity scene as the birthplace of Christ is telling us that hope is not blind optimism, it is not a mere wish. Hope has a name. Immanuel, Hebrew for “God is with us.”
He was then and he is now.
Carlos Campo is CEO of Museum of the Bible.
