Each year, many of us spend time and energy trying to make Christmas keep the promise we think it makes. Longing for peace, we force ourselves to send Christmas cards to people we do not like; and we gather with family members who are more like combatants or competitors than loved ones. Looking for joy, we throw and go to parties with people we know only a little and give gifts we buy in a rush or re-gift presents we did not like when we received them.
Swallowed up by the daily stresses of life, we try to make the early days of December feel special. We light trees and houses. We watch movies that once moved us and change up our play lists to inject both lively and reverent Christmas music, hoping the lyrics or melodies will strike the chord that is missing, the one that melts our hearts, if only for a little while.
Shaken by the absence of "that special Christmas feeling" we sign up for secret Santas, clean out our closets to give coats and hats and mittens to the needy, and pile up grocery bags to help out the local food pantry. Surely, we think, doing good will make us feel warm again.
When that does not work, we may shift our focus back to ourselves; buying gifts we think will buy us goodwill from friends, coworkers and loved ones. We even buy ourselves gifts if we think they hold out any hope of shaking the doubts rising up within us that the Christmas spirit has passed us by again.
So we ask ourselves: Where did Christmas go??
Good news! Christmas has not gone anywhere. In fact, it is more powerful than ever, especially if we ask God to give us the eyes to see it again.
When Jesus came to Earth, He did not bring peace? He brought the promise of peace. Your parents did not bring joy, either; they brought the hope of joy; and it was this hope; the expectancy which made Christmas so special. We were not entirely sure what we were getting from Jesus or from our parents, but we were surely getting something; and that brought on the Christmas spirit; a hope that what we got would somehow make life more fun or more satisfying or more bearable.
Jesus was born in a smelly cattle trough surrounded by what must have been scary noises and animals and strangers. His parents and He were refugees, running from Herod to save His life after hearing the heart-wrenching wails of parents whose baby sons were murdered in the hope of squelching Jesus' life, too.
Herod failed. As would the Temple officials. Satan and Pontius Pilate, too. For Jesus brought the someday we all dream of, the hope of a time and a place where all sorrow ends and only joy reigns. Where the hurts and losses of this world become crowns in the next; where the least among us find themselves lifted high; and the high among us find the peace and rest that is not available on Earth, where to whom much is given, from whom much is expected.
Christmas is our time to remember Jesus promises not only that will it one day be better; it will one day be glorious and perfect. He reminds us to give gifts that celebrate His gift: The surrender of Himself and His home in that Perfect Place for thirty-three human years of suffering and sacrifice so He can take us there, too. He tells us to give to the poor in the one season when they dare to hope something special might happen to them also; and tells us to make it so. He asks us to lift our voices in song as we lift our hearts in sorrow for those whom we can't reach with His hope; or who are so sick or so broken or so oppressed they dare not believe in even the tiniest flicker of hope for fear their present darkness will consume it; and them with it.
And Christmas is our time to marvel that the Son of God would humble Himself to walk among us and weep among us as He gathered the tools He desired to be our Advocate when God asks why He should not just wipe us out and start over. "They are mine"? Jesus answers, "and yours. I paid their debt and made them a Promise that keeps the one you gave to Noah".?
This Christmas, may you have the eyes to see the hope again. And the feet and hands to share it.
--Randy Kilgore
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