Aaron Unseth received his Master of Divinity from Concordia Seminary – St. Louis and received his undergraduate degree in Public Communication from the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire. Aaron previously pastored congregations in San Diego, CA and St. Paul, MN. Aaron became a Board Certified Chaplain in 2022 and is currently a Manager of Spiritual Care for Allina Health. In his role he provides spiritual care for healthcare leaders and oversees a team working at 7 hospital campuses across Minnesota. He has served as a hospital staff chaplain working in emergency medicine, trauma, cardiac intensive care, COVID-19, mental health, and chemical dependency.
It was one of the most memorable Christmas Eve’s I have ever experienced. It happened on the 5th night of my 18-month-old daughter’s hospitalization as she battled a particularly brutal strain of RSV. As I lay alone on the plastic hospital couch and listened to the other child in the double room cry loudly that night I was questioning if my daughter would ever be able to recover from this virus and pondering how far away God felt in that moment. On that less than silent night, it felt like hope was far away, that there was no peace in my corner of the earth, and that there was no joy present in my world. Even on Christmas Eve, Bethlehem seemed so far away.
Our Christmas celebrations are sacred and powerful moments to point each other towards the peace, joy, and hope that our beloved savior ushered in that first Christmas at Bethlehem. But our Christmas celebrations can also be occasions to deeply and honestly acknowledge that we live in a world that regularly seems to be receding from the perfect peace, boundless joy, and unending hope we as humans long to experience. As pastors and worship leaders who are called to point to what will be one day, we can run the risk of skipping ahead too quickly to the good news without allowing our hearers (and if we are honest, ourselves) to sit with the hard emotions we humans regularly face in the course of life. When we accelerate too quickly to the call to look ahead to what is not yet our reality, we run the risk of leaving behind the many who are caught in the heaviness of the now.
Encountering again the full story of what happened at Bethlehem nearly 2000 years ago can be the brake to slow us down. The setup to the greatest story ever told can help us and others acknowledge the lack of peace, the limited joy, and even the absence of hope that can be part of the human experience. The story of Bethlehem is rooted in the oppression of an occupying Caesar, the darkness of the shepherds’ field, the aloneness of the holy family, the cold of the stable, the excruciating pain of childbirth, and the violence that forced Jesus and his parents to become refugees. If we skip past all of that context material too quickly, we run the risk of telling the story of Bethlehem in a way that can look and feel just a little bit fake to many this Christmas season.
Hope Dunbar’s song Bethlehem helps us take the time to slow down and carefully observe all of what Bethlehem might mean to us right now. Has Bethlehem become an antiquated story that doesn’t have anything to speak to us anymore? Has Bethlehem become just a little too bright and gaudy for the dark season that surrounds it for many of us? Does it feel plasticky and fake and leave us wondering if it could ever have meaning for us again (or for the first time)? Does it look old and broken and leave us heavy with doubts that it ever really happened?
Or…can Bethlehem be a place to bring our doubts? Can Bethlehem be a story that is big enough to hold our deep hurts? Can Bethlehem be big enough to hold our weariness? Does Bethlehem have anything to say to those of us whose souls feel even more than just a bit worn thin?
Can Bethlehem become a place that invites us to ponder and reflect on God’s presence even in the darkness and hurt found in our own lives?
If we are still looking at the nativity after all these years, if we are still pulling it out and telling this ancient story, if we are still writing and singing songs about this event -- then maybe even when darkness and pain are close there can also be a real bit of hope that can creep in from hearing the story of Bethlehem. Maybe there can be a true sense of peace that can be planted by encountering the story of Bethlehem. Maybe there can be a slice of joy to be discovered in experiencing the story of Bethlehem.
I hope this song will regularly be on your playlist this holiday season—and even beyond. Maybe the song will show up in your que on a quiet drive to shape your own reflection of how you are encountering the Christmas story this year. Maybe reading over the song’s lyrics will bring a new bit of insight or inspiration into the sermon you are writing or the liturgy you are crafting for this season. Maybe the song will be played at your Christmas Eve service as an invitation for everyone that sits in the sanctuary to ponder how they are encountering Bethlehem this Christmas and to consider its meaning for them once again—or maybe for the first time ever.
The slow and careful examination of the Bethlehem story that this song invites can help us take stock of the ways that we are experiencing the oppression, darkness, isolation, pain, and violence from the Christmas story even in our own lives and can help invite all of that into the pondering of what Bethlehem might mean to us.
Looking back on that memorable Christmas Eve when Bethlehem felt so distant, I can see now the ways that God was present with me and my family in the midst of all that was dark and painful. I wonder sometimes if that Christmas Eve was the closest I’ve ever come to best understanding Bethlehem. I hope that you and I will once again this Christmas season bring our darkness and our pain to Bethlehem and that maybe —just maybe — Bethlehem might hold a word of peace, a word of joy, a word of hope for even us. For there, at the center of the story, we find the word of peace, the word of joy, and the word of hope made flesh…and right there with us.