Written on December 21, 2007

Swaddled by Larry Patten

Ah, Christmas. Sometimes I miss the swaddling clothes.

Instead, in the translation I now use for my day-to-day Biblical reading and reflecting, the Luke 2:7 passage reads, “bands of cloth.”

One seemed mysterious. The other mundane.

Maybe the aura of mystery was because “swaddling” was what I heard during my childhood. The Revised Standard Version (RSV), firmly established by the mid-1950s as the translation of choice for many Protestant churches, used that quaint word. And so, by around ten or eleven years of age, Christmas after Christmas, the description of Jesus’ birth apparel seemed other-worldly to me.

Wasn’t the baby Jesus special, at least in part, because of the mysterious clothes he wore? I didn’t have swaddling clothes in my closet. I never heard anyone saying they’d don swaddling clothes for whatever occasion they were attending.

Since 1989, with the arrival of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), “bands of cloth” has replaced swaddling.

Mundane.

Every year, as I return to the familiar scriptures for Christmas, I try to carefully and faithfully pay attention. I listen and read as if for the first time. As if, and it does, this story matters as much as the next day’s sunrise. Let it be new. Let the myth of the manger, of the child with Joseph and Mary, be a light in this dark, dreary time of the year.

I am never disappointed, even as I miss swaddling and sigh just a tad when I get to the bands of cloth.

This year, two other Biblical phrases caused me listen anew.

If someone asked me to read at a Christmas Eve service, and I got to choose which scripture to proclaim, I’d go with Isaiah 9:2-7. Even just writing about it, I get a few tingles: The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light . . .

In a candle-lighted sanctuary, let me read those words to all those that stumbled in from the winter’s cold. There, in a room of friends and strangers, with our doubts and daring, Isaiah’s ancient belief touches everyone. Everyone has walked in darkness.

But nearly every year, I thoughtlessly move from Isaiah’s grand opening to the second half of the reading anchored by “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” I rarely pay attention to what’s between darkness and peace.

This year I wondered about verse four, about “the day of Midian.”

Whether it’s swaddling clothes or bands of cloth, I can picture a child wrapped in a manger. But what was that “day of Midian?”

A quick review of scholarly books revealed the inevitable. “The day of Midian” was a memory of war. Of King David defeating an army. Isaiah dreamed of an even “better” David. A warrior. When I read Isaiah, I race toward the Prince of Peace passage, toward the “justice and righteousness” the prophet born seven centuries before Jesus longed for. But this year, I slowed down to ponder Midian.

We can never achieve peace through war, but we keep trying. In this time of the year, my wife and I listen to our collection of Christmas songs. One of them, a CD purchased years ago, is a hodgepodge of carols from “the old days.” On it, Bing Crosby promises “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” Frank Sinatra soothingly remembers “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear” and Bob Hope added his voice. Not to sing. Hope’s words are from a scratchy recording done while he visited the troops in the midst of World War II. On the recording, Hope hopes the boys will be home for Christmas by “next year.”

Home from war. Home from Midian. Home from Iraq. Home from Korea. Home from the shores of Tripoli.

The readings of Christmas time are always honest. First, they are honest about human failings and sorrows. Isaiah can’t resist the images of both warrior and prince of peace. He’s only human.

Jesus was born in the time of Roman power. More war. More warriors.

And yet, whether you read the RSV or the NRSV, the story takes us more deeply into holy honesty, and into the Divine longings for the human creation. I read another phrase this season: Paul’s opening lines in his Letter to the Romans where he referred to Jesus as “descended from David according to the flesh.” (Romans 1:3).

Paul says nothing about Jesus’ birth being miraculous. For Paul, there is no magical star or virgin birth. It’s about flesh. About God at work where it matters: In the muck and mud of the most humbling moments. Christmas is flesh and faith and a new way to live.

And so I return to swaddling clothes. Jesus, Luke recalled, was not born with the garments of a warrior. Or even, though my child-like ears once heard this, mysterious apparel.

Instead, the manger swaddles us in a garment of peace. They are simple clothes for hard, holy work. And, in a sense, as he became an adult, Jesus continued to wear the manger’s outfit. We are invited to do the same.