The Monsters Are Due at Christmas?

It seemed singularly out of step with the run-up to Christmas. A Twilight Zone episode featuring aliens toying with human machines just enough to trigger their fear which turns them against each other. But it was a piece that kept coming up as good middle school material, my curriculum was missing drama, I found a good unit on Teachers Pay Teachers, and the timeframe fit. I ignored the un-Yuletide-y vibes and plunged ahead.

As the unit drew to a close, I began to see that I had been wrong. “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” is, in fact, very appropriate to Advent. We long again for angels to appear and say what they always say: “Don’t be afraid.” 

It’s become cliche to refer to 2020 being a year of uncertainty and fear with the Covid-19 pandemic, economic fallout, a worldwide reckoning on racism, a polarizing US election, and much more. The year 1960, when this most popular Twilight Zone episode first aired, was raked with its own uncertainty and fear—the Communist Control Act of 1952 was successfully used for the 2nd and last time, the US entered the Vietnam War, and the USSR shot down the US U2 spy plane. The show was remade as “The Monsters Are on Maple Street” in the wake of 9-11 and the fear of global terrorism. 

Rod Serling shows us a vision of the human tendency to respond to fear with suspicion and scapegoating, which will ultimately destroy exactly what they are trying to preserve. How can we opt out of that herd mentality? Especially when the reasons for fear seem really concrete and probable? Recently, a friend posted this quotation from Henri Nouwen that resonated with me: “Optimism and hope are radically different attitudes. Optimism is the expectation that things—the weather, human relationships, the economy, the political situation, and so on—will get better. Hope is the trust that God will fulfill God's promises to us in a way that leads us to true freedom. The optimist speaks about concrete changes in the future. The person of hope lives in the moment with the knowledge and trust that all of life is in good hands...Let's live with hope.”

Trying to figure out how to share my growing understanding of how Christian hope fights fear with 6th and 7th graders, I realized I had a day on the calendar blocked for reading a Christmas story while I was commenting on rough drafts of the theme essay. I got out one of my favorites, “Guests,” by Katherine Paterson, from her collection Angels and Other Strangers. It’s set in Japan—the setting of our school—during World War 2—also a time of great uncertainty and fear. When I came to the last line, I knew I had my connection: “For the first time in many years, Pastor Nagai obeyed the angel’s word” (36).

What faith gives me is the assurance that even when the physical threat is real, it is a bigger threat to not show the compassion God has shown us--a threat to our eternal souls and the souls of others who won’t see God in us. Not only that, but God empowers us to choose his compassion. And, in the compassionate hand of God, we know our eternal destiny is safe.

May we, too, in these waning days of 2020, obey the angel’s word.