I have a formal apology to make: for years I have judged those who consider Die Hard a Christmas movie, citing the argument that simply because something happens around the holidays does not make it an actual Christmas movie. I ate my words this week when I realized that, all this time, I have been reading Bonhoeffer’s Letters & Papers from Prison under the same premise.

When thinking of books which might kindle Christmas cheer, it is not likely that a collection of letters written from German imprisonment during WWII tops lists. That said, exiles understand the true message of Christ’s incarnation more than the comfortably and cozily-at-home. And, in the truest sense, as per the Apostle Peter’s words, all believers are expected to live like the elect exiles to whom he wrote his first epistle (1 Peter 1:1). What an oxymoron! Elect means choice, chosen, selected, even preferred, and exile connotes the unwanted, the discarded, the seemingly disposable cast outs.

Yet the Holy Spirit organically inspired such words for lasting purpose. Peter knew, first by watching Christ’s life (and death) closely and then by his own personal experience, the paradoxical situation of God’s people. We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people for God’s own possession, yet we are sojourners and strangers on this earth (1 Peter 2:9; 11). Bonhoeffer’s Christmas letters teach us how to lean into our nature as exiles in a season where we try to make ourselves feel most at home in this world.

Hopes for Home Deferred
Approaching Bonhoeffer’s first Christmas in prison (November 1943), his letters leak a cautious optimism that he might be released in time to join his family, most notably his fiancee, Maria. He wrote to his best friend, Eberhard Bethge, “Try to stay in Lissa until after Christmas! Then perhaps we shall really be able to see each other again. What’s your address? How can I reach you immediately after my release by priority call or telegram?” (Tuesday, November 30, 1943).

However, as the days go by, his letters show his understandable weariness of waiting: “This waiting is revolting Prisoners are like sick people and children; promises with them should always be kept” (December 16, 1943). He wrote his parents the following:

“I needn’t tell you how I long to be released and to see you all again. But for years you have given us such perfectly lovely Christmases that our grateful recollection of them is strong enough to put a darker one into background. It’s not till such times as these that we realize what it means to possess a past and a spiritual inheritance independent of changes of time and circumstance. The consciousness of being borne up by a spiritual tradition that goes back for centuries gives one a feeling of confidence and security in the face of all passing strains and stresses….They will not overwhelm those who hold fast to values that no one can take from them” (December 17, 1943).

We need not be in prison to understand the pains of hope deferred. While we may not be waiting expectantly for release from an unfair imprisonment, we long for release from anxiety, depression, isolation, unemployment, financial strain, and countless other proverbial prisons. We know homesickness, if not for our earthly homes, for the heavenly home for which we were made: the new heaven and the new earth in which righteousness dwell (2 Peter 3:13). As such, we can all stand to learn from Bonhoeffer’s advice for when the present seems dismal: remember the past and rehearse the future, both our own personal pasts and the deep past of redemptive history. Peter gave the same sage advice to the actual exiles scattered by persecution in the early church. He began by reminding them of their spiritual inheritance, “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,” kept in heaven for them by Him who also kept them in their exile (1 Peter 1: 3–5).

Our present may be far from our preference, but we remain God’s preferred and purchased people, bought at the price of the Lamb without blemish or spot (1 Peter 1:18–19). We have a future that no current contingencies can change.

Christmas in Confinement
In the same letter to his parents, Bonhoeffer unpacks the unexpected gifts given to one confined at Christmas

“From the Christmas point of view there is no special problem about Christmas in a prison cell. For many people in this building it will probably be a more sincere and genuine occasion that in places where nothing but the name is kept. That misery, suffering, poverty, loneliness, helplessness, and guilt mean something quite different in the eyes of God from what they mean in the judgement of man, that God will approach where men turn away, that Christ was born in a stable because there was no room for him in the inn – these are things that a prisoner can understand better than other people; for him they really are glad tidings, and that faith gives him a part in the communion of the saints, a Christian fellowship breaking the bounds of time and space and reducing the months of confinement here to insignificance.”

This Christmas season, I know friends who are confined to beds with sicknesses and others who are literally exiled from their homes. But I am also wise enough to know that confinement goes far beyond the physical. Many in our own congregations and corners are confined by mental illnesses that make them feel as isolated as actual prisonera. Some families are confining themselves out of a real fear of being deported. Some are so relationally confined that they feel they have no safe place to confide. Bonhoeffer’s model is the gift we didn’t know we needed. He reminds us that far from setting us outside of the Christmas spirit, Christmas in confining circumstances places us closer to the true heart and meaning of Christ’s coming to earth.

Let Homesickness Be Your Homing Device
In a season where homes and hearths are decorated and take center stage, a sense of longing and homesickness can act like a homing device, orienting us to our ultimate and unshakeable home in the city whose builder and architect is God (Hebrews 11:10). Here, too, Bonhoeffer’s Christmas letter to Eberhard helps us

“When we are forcibly separated for any considerable time from those whom we love, we simply cannot, as most can, get some cheap substitute through other people – I don’t mean because of moral considerations, but just because we are what we are. Substitutes repel us; we simply have to wait and wait; we have to suffer unspeakably from the separation, and feel the longing till it almost makes us ill. That is the only way, although it is a very painful one, in which we can preserve our relationships with our loved ones” (December 18, 1943).

While it must have been tempting to deaden the longing or to settle for cheap substitutes, Bonhoeffer learned to lean into the longing for home. Every believer, even those settled in satisfaction with their loved ones at home, should be deeply homesick to be with Him whom our souls love. We are all in long-distance relationships with the lover of our souls. The distance and the wait feels uncomfortable. As such, we may be tempted to settle for cheap substitutes, but nothing short of our Savior can sate our souls. No gift, no vacation, no human relationship, no perfectly executed holiday celebration.

This is Christmas for exiles. See you at home!