Speculative Stephen

Being a father at Christmastime is fraught with peril. You need to recreate the magic of Christmas you remember from your childhood without losing the ability to enjoy it yourself. You need to provide the right gifts for your children without teaching them that Christmas is all about getting. It’s a fine balancing act and I’m probably failing.

But Christmas is a celebration of the birth of our Savior, meaning that there is a divine good that will make up for my shortcomings. My childhood Christmas’s were magical, even though my parents didn’t pull them off perfectly. Don’t ask me how they messed it up. I don’t remember. I just know they did because they are human.

Christmas is a season of hope, which is a comfort in these years of anxiety. My government is abandoning central pillars of what made America great. My state faces the perils of growth—running out of water and struggling to integrate people from around the world. On a personal level, I’ll shortly have a teenager. Am I doing all that I can? Is there anything I can do to pass on the America I loved to my children? Am I properly preparing them for a world neither or nor they can control? It can be easy to let despair and anxiety dominate.

So I take the time to remember that Christ wasn’t born to riches, comfort, safety, and freedom. He was born to a destitute couple far from their home, subjects to an oppressive empire that upheld a corrupt local ruling class. Christianity grew and thrived as the empire grew and collapsed under despots that often had a tenuous grasp on reality.

Whatever happens in the coming years, my children will almost certainly have more than Christians for most of history. Even if the America of tomorrow isn’t what I grew up with, it will likely provide more to them than the European kingdoms our ancestors left. That doesn’t mean there is nothing to stand up for. Our goal isn’t just-enough freedom or a sufficient amount of welfare. Our goal is Zion, the kingdom of heaven, a place where there are no poor and everyone has the ability to choose their own path. I won’t be satisfied with less, but I also recognize that the world that exists today took many, many generations to build. The work that’s left will require more generations.

So I celebrate Christmas knowing that peace on earth and goodwill to men isn’t just a trite couple of phrases, but a generations-long goal that I am working toward along with generations of Christians stretching from ancient Palestine to today, from my home to wherever my descendants will end up in the coming years.