Christmas….it brings all the feelings, doesn’t it? No other day of the year is weighted with such depths of emotions as this one day.
Especially the older I get, the more changes I’ve experienced, the more joys and sorrows that have been my lot as I’ve walked this journey of life, the more memories that fill my heart and spill out in bright, shining rays but also those that seep out in grief darkened shadows….the laughter and the tears, the happiness and the hurts, the sunlit mountaintops and the valleys so deep I thought I would never see the light again….somehow it all culminates at Christmas.
It’s the “most wonderful time of the year”.
It’s the time of year that the most suicides are committed.
It’s the time of families and friends gathering.
It’s the time that those that are absent are most keenly missed.
It’s the time of excitement and anticipation and gifts piled high.
It’s the time of disappointment, of unmet expectations, of anxiety and pressure.
It’s the time of year that all that is right and all that is wrong in our lives are brought into sharper focus.
For me, as a child, Christmas was truly a time of wonder and mystery, a time of secrets and surprises, a time of delicious, once a year treats, of special songs about angels and baby Jesus, and of snowmen and Santa, a time of decorations that glimmered and glowed and turned our home, our stores, our town into a wonderland of delight.
.
My parents created an amazing Christmas every year for my brother and me, a Christmas that dreams are made of, filled with love and safety and cherished traditions. I was so blessed to truly have the ideal Christmas as a child, and I couldn’t comprehend that my experience was not shared by everyone.
My grandmother lived with us most of my childhood, and my main memories of her are this...
she prayed on her knees every night beside the bed in the room we shared,
she sang sad sounding songs of heaven while she washed dishes,
and she always cried at Christmas.
Every year, I saw my grandmother cry, and I never understood why. I didn’t understand that my grandmother cried for what had been, and for what should have been and never was. She cried for memories of Christmas past, the bitter that outweighed the sweet, for family members now gone, for dreams unrealized and love that left, for the weight of all the hard years and for fear of the future. It was the one shadow on my childhood Christmases, my grandmothers tears, a whisper that all might not always be “merry and bright” for me.
Only as an adult have I understood my grandmothers tears. Hard things seem harder at Christmas. Grief is more acute. Disappointments are deeper. Unmet expectations stand in even sharper relief against the “all comes right with the world” plot of a Hallmark movie, the Pinterest crafted, magazine cover decorated, Norman Rockwell- perfect -family idealized version of Christmas that has been sold to us as the normal experience of this one day.
This year it is even more poignant, as my mom is in an Alzheimer’s unit at an assisted living. The mom who made my childhood Christmas so magical now doesn’t even know it is Christmas. Her memories are gone, her awareness of her family is severely impaired, her ability to enjoy even simple pleasures has been robbed by this terrible disease. I hear “I’ll be Home for Christmas” on the radio and tears well up and spill down my cheeks as I know that the one thing my mom is aware of is that she wants to go home, and she can’t.
At the same time, even as the tears flow, I choose to be thankful for all that was. I grieve what is lost but the grief is mixed with gratitude and also with hope, yes and even with joy, for I know that someday my mom will be released from the prison of Alzheimer’s and will experience a joy that we cannot comprehend here on earth, a joy that will more than outweigh all of her present suffering.
This year I am so conscious that JOY is the true message of Christmas.
The carols proclaim it over and over:
Joyful, joyful we adore thee…Joy to the World, the Lord is come…Long desired of every nation, Joy of every waiting heart…Good Christian men, rejoice, with heart and soul and voice…Joyful all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies…O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant…o tidings of comfort and joy…
Over and over and over again, JOY is the message of Christmas.
And yet, how often I have missed it. I look back over the years and realize I’ve put both too many expectations and too few on this day.
I’ve made too much of decorations and gifts and food and people and expectations and perfections.
I’ve made too little of reflecting on how Christmas answers the deepest longing of my heart,
heals the deepest wounds in my spirit,
fills the deepest emptiness in my soul,
answers the most profound questions of my life.
With all the emotions of Christmas that we feel, sometime we forget that JOY is the gift that came wrapped in swaddling clothes, contained in a newborn’s soft flesh, joy that transcends all that is not right in our world.
“The weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn”.
Yes, our own personal world can feel weary from the weight of the problems and disappointments and deep hurts we carry within and Christmas can be just another weight that is added to the load, but if we will allow it room JOY will break in. “Let every heart, prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing”.
We’ve not given enough thought to the message of the angel to the shepherds. The message could have been, "I bring you news of great hope ," or "I bring you news of great peace", both of which are true. But, God chose to tell the angel to announce to the shepherds this news:
“Behold, I bring you news of a great joy which shall be to all the people.” Luke 2:10
At this time, this Christmas in my life, I am choosing JOY. I like Rick Warren’s definition of Christian joy, “Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be alright, and the determined choice to praise God in every situation.”
John Piper defines joy as “a good feeling in the soul, produced by the Holy Spirit, as he causes us to see the beauty of Christ in the word and in the world.” But, he acknowledges that this feeling is in the soul, not always felt in the body and that sometimes it co-exists with sorrow and grief.
For the past two years I have been trying to learn to live, not for the next adventure, not to change the world, not endlessly planning the future, but just to enjoy each moment, being present in the now, living eucharisteo each day---giving thanks, seeing grace, choosing joy.
And it is only because of Christmas that I can live this way.
Only because God came down, at a particular point in time, in a particular place,
and entered into the humanity He had created,
subjecting Himself to the very life that we live in all its wonder and sorrow and joy and grief and pleasure and disappointments and every single feeling that we feel at Christmas and all the year long….
God with us!!!!!!
God as a little helpless infant, birthed as we all are in the pain of his mother, entering a hostile world defenseless and vulnerable, in order to be the gift that we all most need.
God, squeezed out through a birth canal, drawing breath into a life that would become our life’s breath.
“I bring you tidings of great JOY”. God with us!!! JESUS! That is the joy!
Because he was made helpless, we never have to be.
Because he entered the darkness, we can enter His light.
Because he was wounded, we can be healed of every hurt in our past.
Because he emptied himself to become like us, we can be filled with all that he imparts to us----love, joy, peace, forgiveness, no condemnation, unity with the Father, and a forever home with Him where there is no sorrow, only JOY.
As I was writing this, my dad called to tell me that his doctor has given him unexpected news, that he has advanced cancer and should call in hospice. He spoke bravely, with thanksgiving for the good years he has had, for the change in his life once he was saved, with assurance that he knows where he is going. But, it is hard news.
A family friend called this week to tell me that after many months of prayers and hope for recovery, her beloved grandson, a young man with so much promise, has died. She knows he is with Jesus, but it will be a difficult Christmas for her family and I hurt for them.
Other dear friends face every Christmas missing their precious daughter, a beautiful young woman who delighted in this time of year and whose absence is felt especially poignantly in the glow of the Christmas lights, and we grieve for them.
Bob and I, although enjoying each day and having a wonderful time with our grandchildren, still live in the shadow of his cancer with the chemo no longer working and not knowing if the new treatment will be effective.
No, life is not a Hallmark Christmas movie, but the message of the angel is still true, for all of us.
“Behold, I bring you tidings of a great JOY, that shall be for ALL people”.
Because of Christmas, there is joy in the journey,
there is hope for the future,
and there is grace in the present moment.
And when I choose to focus on those truths, it is enough.
I wish each of you a Christmas that is more than a Hallmark movie, a Christmas filled with JOY!
