A few days ago, while hanging Christmas lights on our front porch, a thought struck me: the entire Christmas story requires darkness to mean anything at all. Without the darkness of night, there is no story of light breaking through. Without shadows, there is nothing to illuminate.
Under the cover of darkness Joseph and Mary fled King Herod’s plan to kill the newborn child. The shepherds watched over their flocks at night. In the darkness of the night, the guiding star was revealed.
It was into such darkness that the ancient message was first spoken: “Fear not.” Not because the world had suddenly become safe. Not because threats had disappeared or powerful people had discovered the power of compassion. But because something was taking place that did not depend on the world’s power systems at all.
While King Herod tightened his grip—hoarding control, crushing the vulnerable, governing from his own anxious insecurity—a different kind of Humanity arrived. An infant. Naked. Dependent. Wrapped in the humility of a borrowed stable, born to parents on the run from political power.
The contrast could not be sharper. Or more applicable to teach us how to see our own day.
The ancient texts we read this week insist that real peace—the kind that heals, the kind that lasts—does not emerge through domination or control. It comes when “the poor are defended,” “the needy delivered,” and when “the oppressor”—whoever and wherever they may be—is stopped from doing harm (Psalm 72:4).
In this essay on the matter, Walter Brueggemann calls Psalm 72 a kind of “charter for good government,” a public vision in which power exists for one purpose: to safeguard and lift up those with no leverage. The psalmist imagines a ruler whose authority is not measured by military strength or political victory, but by mercy extended to the most vulnerable. Peace, in this psalm, is not calm enforced by fear or oversight—it is the fruit of compassion flowing downward.
Last week I mentioned that this year I am writing about the shadows of Advent—the internal postures and social conditions that erode our capacity to live in harmony. Peace is often the first casualty of those shadows. For, when fear becomes our governing inner spirit, we grasp for whatever version of order we can manufacture through control. Some think this is “peace,” but it isn’t. It’s forced silence purchased by intimidation and lopsided negotiation, a counterfeit calm that evaporates the moment power shifts.
The message of the angels—if we are to take them seriously—offers something entirely different. Their message breaks into the night not with “be very afraid,” not with “arm yourselves,” but with “fear not.” Something is coming, they insist, that will look nothing like the “peace” we’ve been settling for.
This becomes especially challenging for those who have grown used to confusing political power with moral authority, or national security with the common good. Christmas exposes the folly of that confusion. It reveals the contrast between the Christ-child—arriving with nothing but vulnerability—and every Herod-like leader who clings to dominance by leveraging fear.
And here’s the thing: Herod is not locked in the past. Herod is any leader, system, or movement that sees the poor, the immigrant, the minority, or the outsider as a threat to be neutralized rather than a neighbor to be protected.
Tragically, many who claim to follow the way of Jesus have baptized Herod and its political ways. Sometimes out of anger, sometimes out of confusion, most often out of fear. Fear makes cruelty look like courage. Fear convinces us that safety can be gained through someone else’s suffering.
But the imagination of the ancient texts points to another way. It insists that peace begins at the bottom: with the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, the laborer, the one who has no helper. Brueggemann describes Psalm 72’s king as one who uses power “on behalf of the weak, the strayed, the lost”—a sharp contrast to rulers who use power to preserve themselves and promote their own name.
If the peace we seek does not start with those who have the fewest protections, it is not real peace. It is simply Herod again, disguised with makeup and a comb-over.
The lectionary psalm this week makes this unmistakable. It does not pray for a king who can defend himself and his powerful friends. It prays for the defenseless. It does not ask for a ruler who can “win.” It longs for a ruler who serves on behalf of the oppressed. It does not say, “may he crush our enemies.” It says, “crush the oppressor.”
Whoever they may be. Wherever they may be. Even if the oppressor is someone we may have supported or voted for.
Advent requires this personal reflection and responsibility. Because in our present moment—in this country, in this political climate—fear has become something like a social sacrament. Entire movements feed on the fear of the stranger, the immigrant, racial difference, vulnerable neighbors whose mere presence challenges our sense of control.
Fear shapes policies, sermons, voting blocs, fundraising campaigns. It energizes crowds. It sanctifies vengeance, murder, and needless suffering. It confuses domination with righteousness.
And many, including many Christians, cheer it on. Or worse—shrug.
They cheer when immigrants are described as infestations and garbage. They cheer when whole communities of color are punished collectively. They cheer when vengeance is treated as virtue. They cheer when the poor are cast as obstacles instead of image-bearers.
But Advent confronts us with this truth: you cannot arrive at peace by energizing fear. You cannot defend a kingdom of mercy by adopting the posture of domination. You cannot live out justice by striking down the very people scripture commands us to lift up. Psalm 72 will not allow it. And the Child in the manger weeps.
This second week of Advent invites us to consider whether we have allowed fear to deform our moral imagination. Whether we have traded true peace for worldly power. Whether we have become, in ways subtle or overt, the very oppressors the psalm warns against.
Because the Christ-child does not arrive to secure our power. He arrives to dismantle the myth that power can save us. He stands with those the world discards—calling us to do the same.
As Brueggemann reminds us, Psalm 72 is not escapist poetry. It is a public imagination for a different kind of governance, a different kind of social order—one where the vulnerable are centered and power is measured by its mercy. Advent echoes that imagination. It exposes every idol we’ve bowed to, especially the idol of power, and invites us again to choose the way of the manger over the way of the throne.
So this week, as we light the candle of peace, we are not lighting it for quiet neighborhoods or cozy holiday celebrations. We are lighting it for the peace that begins where it must always begin: with the poor defended, the needy cared for, and every oppressor stripped of their ability to harm.
To “fear not,” as the message declares—not because the world is calm, but because the peace we await is made by acts of mercy. A peace in which, as the old hymn sings, “in His name all oppression shall cease.” Peace that comes from choosing to stand with the vulnerable, to defend those without leverage, to resist the seduction of power that promises security at someone else’s expense.
The lights on my porch are few. They do not illuminate very far. But they do mark a refusal…a refusal to let the darkness have the final word, a refusal to let fear govern, a refusal to mistake control for peace.
For peace will not come from fear. It never has. It never will.
Shane Ash 