A Star over Bedlam

Don Friesen
January 2, 2005
Ottawa Mennonite Church

www.ottawamennonite.ca

Christmas is over for another year. The Advent wreath and candles have been put away and by next week the Christmas tree, the Advent banner, and the creche will also be gone. No doubt those who helped put together the Christmas pageant are pleased it's over, for Christmas pageants are often an experience in chaos! The angels and the little sheep and all manner of hangers-on head for Bethlehem, but often end up in bedlam! I remember one of our pageants, when the Bethlehem star we used was taller and heavier than the little person holding it, and when it fell it almost took out an angel! Christmas pageants are recipes for disaster — and comedy; we have but to remember the book, The Worst Christmas Pageant Ever, or the bizarre pageant in John Irving's novel, Owen Meany.

Bethlehem: A Hospital for the Insane

Bethlehem and bedlam are closely linked, and not simply by way of pageants. The oldest institution for the care and confinement of the mentally ill in England, and one of the oldest in Europe, is Bethlem Royal Hospital in London. The building itself began as a priory for the sisters and brethren of the order of the Star of Bethlehem in the thirteenth century (1247), but it became a hospital in the centuries following. It is presently connected with the University of London's Institute of Psychiatry, but documents show that as early as 1403 it was known as a home for lunatics!

At the time the mentally ill were known as "lunatics" and the hospital was known as the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem. Over time, however, the accent of the local residents changed the name of the hospital from "Bethlehem" to "Bedlam," and a new word entered the English language. At first "bedlam" was simply a synonym for "insane asylum," but it eventually came to mean any place of uproar and confusion. Bethlem Royal Hospital became famous and later in-famous for the brutal treatment meted out to the insane. It was described as a wild, chaotic place, a place of incessant noise — banging and yelling, moaning and crying — a din of misery that went on day and night. Among its well-known patients — when finally they were recognized as "patients" — was Hannah Chaplin, the mother of actor Charlie Chaplin.

Bedlam — A Good Description of the Bethlehem Story

Bedlam is a good synonym for Bethlehem, for the Bethlehem story is hardly a romantic tale. It may have remained a sweet story were it not for King Herod — the local royal lunatic. The three wise men may have remained three tourists touring the Holy Land were it not for Herod's paranoia. (Matthew 2:3) When Herod caught a but a hint that there might be another royal contender around, he lost no time in mobilizing resources to track these wise guys. He called all of his consultants together — those on the payroll, those on retainer, as well any free-lancers he could hire on a per diem basis — and with their help discovered the boy-king might be found in Bethlehem! (2:5) Bethlehem quickly got sucked into the sphere of palace intrigue (2:7) and disingenuous scheming. (2:8) By the time Herod had his henchmen positioned in Bethlehem, however, the wise men and the new parents were long gone! (2:12-15)

Bedlam and Then Some

Most years, on the Sunday closest to the change in calendar year, I ask you to share your recollections of the past year, and I'm going to ask you to do so again in a few moments. It's good to sit back and reflect on a span of time, and the sharing I've heard is always honest. Joys are recounted, but set-backs are also acknowledged. I remember one year when a man got up and gave thanks that his family had managed to get through another year without a major disaster. Then a woman got up and shared that the year had not gone all that well for her, and just when she was thinking that things could not get worse, they did! Her home had burned down the previous week.

It's bad enough that centuries of inmates at the Bethlem Royal Hospital in London were treated in an inhumane manner, but I find it even more appalling that sane people found the antics of the in-sane housed there entertaining! In the eighteenth century wealthy Londoners would go to the hospital to listen to and laugh at the lunatics chained to the walls and beds. For a penny they could peer into the cells and view the "freak-show of Bethlehem". This is bedlam and then some!

Just when one thinks that things cannot get worse, they do! The Bethlehem story in our Gospel reading no sooner introduces the child of peace, than we are introduced to Herod, a murderous sociopath! And of his pathology there is no doubt, for history records that Herod had three of his own children executed because he thought they were eyeing his throne, and later he had another son killed, for who-knows-what-reason. Herod was a mean and cruel man. In fact, Matthew tells us that in his frustrated attempt to find this internationally-acclaimed boy-king, Herod ordered the murder of all children under two years of age living in the Bethlehem region — an event that the Church remembers as the "Slaughter of the Innocents," or as "Holy Innocents' Day".

It would be heart-warming to think that in two thousand years Bethlehem has become a place of less bedlam, but the tension in that city is always there, indeed mounts every year as the Christmas festival comes around. I remember an ecumenical news item a year or two ago with the headline, "Christmas may be cancelled in Bethlehem". While in churches and public squares all over the world creches were erected, recreating Bethlehem and marking a season of joy and festivity, in Bethlehem itself there was little joy and almost no celebration of the event that made that "little town" so famous. The Dean of St. George's College in Jerusalem was quoted as saying that "although the anxieties and paranoia level in Palestine have diminished, many of the locals are still fearful of entering Manger Square." The Bishop of Jerusalem added: "Most roads have been damaged and there is hardly any light between the checkpoints and the Nativity."

For Darkness Shall Cover the Earth, and Thick Darkness

Our reading from the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, tells us, "For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples...." (Isaiah 60:2) Just when you think it's already dark, the darkness gets thicker. I thought of this phrase from Isaiah when reading news reports from Asia this week. The destruction there is unbelievable. The number of lives lost is 150,000 or more, the consequences of this disaster overwhelming for those who survived. Compared to the losses incurred by the twelve countries directly hit, the loss to countries who lost tourists there seems paltry; nonetheless, I was struck by a news item reporting that Nordic countries lost the most tourists. The BBC reported that the Swedish death toll alone could number more than a thousand! And the reason is that people from the northern Scandinavian countries, where the winter nights are long and sunshine limited, seek escape from the dark northern winter in the Asian sun! They go south in search of light. ("Sun-seeking Swedes hardest hit of tourists," Ottawa Citizen, December 30, 2004) The irony is that this year's Christmas tourists were enveloped in an even thicker darkness.

The images of darkness and light are central to our two readings from Scripture, and if you aren't already depressed, let me quote you a stanza from a poem by Matthew Arnold entitled "Dover Beach":

"Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."

("Dover Beach")