And it came to pass that the Divine Justice heard that war was being waged on Christmas. Humans waged innumerable wars. They all called on the Holy One to support their battling sides in each war they fought, so much so that the heavenly host had put a block on all incoming war petitions. And so it was some time before news of the War on Christmas filtered through the ether to the Highest Throne.
The Holy One thought of the first Christmas, of a poor peasant woman going into labor on a bed of straw, like countless other poor women. Her fear, her pain, the terror on the face of her husband—would he lose his beloved? So much blood, her face pale, drenched with sweat, only a stable girl to attend her lying-in. The stable girl had birthed goats but never a human baby, but she sang to the laboring mother the same tuneless melody she used to calm her goats. And so the baby was born, healthy, and laid in straw next to his mother. The stable girl knew to boil comfrey leaves and place them on the mother’s sore and weary body. The family had no food and no money for food, so the stable girl milked her goats and gave it to the mother and father.
Were humans fighting a war against this Christmas? Arch-angelic fact finders scoured the globe looking for evidence, and came back to the Divine Justice in a state of despair.
Poor women were still giving birth in dirt and squalor; they couldn’t feed their families, they didn’t have clothes or clean water for their children, they were raped and tormented, kept as chattel animals. Their men and boy-children were conscripted into armies or sent deep into mines with little or no protection or compensation. And the Herods of the current age, those with money and power, were taking what little food they had away from the poor.
“We thought Christmas meant seeing justice pour down like waters; we thought Christmas meant giving humans a chance to fulfill Your Prophet’s vision, that You want humans to loose the bands of wickedness, to bring the homeless poor into their homes, to feed the hungry and let the oppressed go free.”
The Archangels confessed that they didn’t know what to do. “Your own Child dwelled among them once, with terrible consequences, but today’s Herods still want money and power more than they want Christmas. Today’s Herods demand that the poor work seven days a week to make enough money each year to pay for the owners’ private jets, ski holidays, gold and diamond baubles. Not to mention bizarre electronic gadgets beyond Archangelic comprehension. We have never seen such quantities of rich food in human homes as today’s Herods throw out, and yet among them, several billions live on the edge of starvation. Nowhere can the poor rest on the Sabbath or on holy days; they must labor without ceasing to increase the Herods’ profit margins.”
The Archangels broke down and wept, unable to look the Holy One in the face. “There is a war on Christmas, and Christmas has lost.”
