Let me be honest with you.
I have mixed feelings about Christmas.
On the one hand, I love the joy and anticipation that I get to observe in my children as Christmas Day approaches and the excitement of Christmas morning. The idea of “being” Santa Claus is growing on me… literally. I like catching up with my family over a good meal. And who doesn’t enjoy receiving the odd gift or two?
On the other hand, by the time I arrive at Christmas Day, I am usually so exhausted by the build-up — the rushing about, the extra hours at work, navigating shopping malls during pandemics, and children’s gift assembly late into the night — that I wonder if it’s worth it.
Not only that, as Christmas time and the end of the year thunders towards us, I always seem to be confronted with everything I didn’t achieve this year: The resolutions that went unmet; the goals I never achieved; the things that didn’t go to plan — as if meeting goals was the point of life! And memories of better Christmases, of times-gone-by, when life was sweet, and my universe much more well-ordered and simple, compete with what is in front of me now.
As a friend of mine put it, “Each year Christmas is a reminder of another year gone, another without achieving the things I deeply desire, and this year another year of grief and loss.”
I can relate to that.
Somehow Christmas, for many of us, is bittersweet. There is joy and pain. There is excitement and disappointment. There is laughter and sorrow. All mixed in together. Back in the day, when my Christmas morning tradition involved attending a Christmas church service, there was no mention of pain, or disappointment, or sorrow — only joy, which is kind of ironic, really, when you think about the original Christmas story.
Do you think Mary imagined that she would give birth to her first child in a dirty stable with floors lined with the shit of farm animals?
Do you think Joseph imagined that he wouldn’t even be able to provide a roof or a bed for the baby and end up completely at the mercy of the charity of others?
Mixed in with the joy that the birth of a child brings, there must have been sorrow, pain, and disappointment as well.
And it all belongs.
As a child, I was taught that Christ came to the world to save us from our sins. But, these days, I wonder if the real point of Christ’s life was for God to show solidarity with humanity in all its glorious mess. As Richard Wurmbrand once said:
The coming of Christ is the completion of God’s “in-ness.” God is in humans because he became human and experienced humanity in both its beauty and its pain.
You might say, “What kind of God would be present in the midst of suffering and do nothing about it?” and it would be a fair question. But being present in the midst of suffering is not the same thing as doing nothing. God’s response to suffering is not to try to explain it or justify it but to participate in it with us. That is why Christians believe that Jesus is the very incarnation of God: God comes to us in human form. For that is precisely what God needed to do.
This Christmas season, I want to remind all that happen to read what I write that your story matters, and no matter what your Christmas looks like — whether it be full of joy or pain, or both — I feel the melancholy and mixed feelings that can come to us at Christmas time as well.
Remember, Christmas began in a dank, dark, foul-smelling stable surrounded by horse shit. And yet, God was there.
You’re not alone.
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
—
This post was previously published on Backyard Church.
***
You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: iStock