The frigid air was thick was the smell of damp straw and animal dung.
The newborn was wrapped tightly to shield him from the unrelenting wind, while his exhausted mother pressed him close to her chest. The man tended diligently to the fire beside them; the only way he could feel useful in the midst of such scarcity and lack. This was not how he had hoped this would unfold.
A weathered feeding trough surrounded by livestock was a less-than-ideal place for a life to come into the world, but it was the only space that could me made for the young couple, who’d found little rest as of late.
For strangers here, hospitality can be difficult to come by, and they’d gotten used to being on the outside.
To the couple’s surprise, a small crowd began to gather: some kind local farm workers who’d heard the good news that a child of great promise had been born, and in a time bereft of hope, they rushed to greet him and to celebrate.
“Every human being should receive a hero’s welcome,” they declared, “no matter where they’re from.”
They spoke of the joy pregnant in that moment; the possibilities of this radiant young life and of the world it would alter in countless ways.
The young parents finally exhaled deeply.
Despite the many trials they’d faced along their journey, there was real peace in that place. And though it seemed almost counterintuitive, for the first time in far too long, they finally felt home.
Without warning, the stillness was shattered by a group of masked, armed men who descended from the shadows, bringing pain and chaos with them. They grabbed people indiscriminately, knocking them to the frozen ground, driving their faces into the mud, smashing their heads against the walls with a violent disregard for life that only comes from the safety of anonymity and the protection of power.
In the disorienting mayhem, the fire was upended, engulfing the straw surrounding the child, as terrified animals careened wildly around the couple and farmers scattered in every direction.
The parents pleaded with their assailants, asking what they had done wrong, trying to make sense of this swift and sudden violence, begging them for mercy—but mercy was not to be found in these darkened hearts, which held no room for compassion.
On the contrary, they seemed to be enjoying this.
The man strained to keep the masked intruders away from his family, the desperation etched deeply into his face, but their numbers and their armor were too much for him to withstand. They rained blows upon his head, his blood spraying the manger as he fell to the ground and began to lose consciousness. The last sounds he would hear would be the sounds of his family being brutalized by men who did not have the courage to show their faces.
And finally, when there was no one else left to protect her, the young mother was bound and dragged away into the surrounding blackness, even as she bellowed for her newborn child, who was now cold and alone, crying for help that would not come.
Once again, he was treated like an animal.
And not long after, the monsters returned to their homes, to their families, to their children. They set down their weapons, exited their armor, and finally removed their masks, still smeared with blood and mud and the straw that a newborn child had just been resting upon.
They would gather in cloistered comfort around a table of opulence paid for by their misdeeds, and mock the human beings they’d visited terror upon, their bodies still pulsating from adrenaline.
They bragged about the wounds they’d generated, laughed at the desperation of strangers, and celebrated how they’d made the world safer from “illegals,” completely unaware of the irony.
Bethlehem was no longer safe, but not because of exhausted young couples, kindhearted farm workers, or blameless babies.
It was no longer safe, solely because men in masks abandoned humanity, betrayed their neighbors, and decided that a soul could indeed be bought—and they were happy for the extra cash around the holidays.
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