Last year we witnessed the kidnapping of 250 young girls in Nigeria by Boko Haram, a terrorist network. We cried knowing what was happening to those young children. They are still missing. They are still in the jungle, somewhere in the wilderness.
Is there a star shining over these 250 young girls in the jungle of Nigeria?
At Easter time this year we witnessed how 148 young students in Garissa University College, Kenya, were shot in their dormitories. Surviving friends were crying in desperation and grief. The parents were crushed under the shock and cruelty of the meaningless tragedy.
Is there a star shining over the parents and families and survivors?
Josef and Mary was a young couple waiting for their first child to be born. They had nowhere to go when the birth was overdue, Josef was desperate, he could loose his wife and his newborn child during a cold night in the dirty barn.
Was there a star shining over the terrified young couple, soon to be refugees in Egypt, escaping from the terror of the jealous king?
This may be a different Christmas message. My thoughts started in the darkness of the Nigerian jungle, went to the darkness of the dormitories in Kenya and from there to the darkness of the barn in Bethlehem.
The star of Bethlehem is shining over the 250 young girls in the Nigerian jungle; the star of Bethlehem is shining over the grieving victims in Garissa.
The star of Christmas is the star shining into the desperation and pain and suffering of the poor and oppressed and the victimized. The star of Bethlehem is shining over the untold story of Injustices towards Young People.
If we do not identify with that untold story in solidarity with the victims, we have to do without the shining star of Christmas.
For us then is only the Jingle Bells…..