When Christmas Doesn't Feel So Jolly
Christmas, though we associate with jolly music, decadent recipes, colorful packages with shiny ribbon, and celebration, is not the absence of pain. Christmas is not the absence of suffering.
Some of you know this all too well - tragedy or loss which struck this time of year, and even when it comes in different seasons, remembrance and longing to be with a loved one brings a wave of grief. If this is you, know you are not alone. And know, God does not dismiss your pain, rather He's here, stepping into your pain with you. The flood of emotions fills His heart too.
Isn't it amazing God feels, too?
Because, as humans, we have limited understanding, it could make sense emotion is part of this - a reaction to our limited understanding. And though we may feel a particular emotion rise up within us as a reaction to a circumstance we're trying to process with limited understanding, not all emotion is this. For without emotion, we wouldn't experience the joy of being connected to another, and without knowing this joy, we wouldn't be able to know the pain of separation. And this, this is part of our likeness with God.
God feels.
Last week, we talked about the Fall - and to revisit this briefly - before the Fall, God and man en-joyed unhindered connection with one another. Sin and pain did not separate. Loss was not part of God's good design for us. But, when sin entered the world, pain came with it - the natural consequence which God had tried to protect us from experiencing. In the same way a parent hurts when their child hurts, God hurts when we hurt - because God feels.
After the Fall, this separation from God became our reality. Not because God is not merciful but because He is also just. In His holiness, He cannot be with the unholy. This reality grieved the heart of God. He knew we had a problem we could never fix on our own. An unholy people could never be made holy without holy intervention. So, He made a promise that one day a child of Eve's would come and make the impossible possible again - reconciliation - a holy intervention would cover our unholiness so that His holiness would be our robe of righteousness before God and we could en-joy connection with Him and the Father again.
The just God who feels, and out of this well of compassion, has mercy on the sinner - because from the beginning of sin, God sees past the sin and sees the love He has for His most prized creation - a love that draws Him to be with us, no matter the cost.
And if you're thinking, "Okay, but my heart is broken in two. This pain I feel is real. It's overwhelming. If there's a God who feels, a God who cares, wouldn't He see the injustice of the world and His heart would break?"
May I remind you friend, it does. God's heart breaks when He sees our pain and suffering. I know this sounds comforting but it's not just a nice-to-hear, it's the truth. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. Walk with me back to Genesis.
Time has passed since the Fall, but it doesn't take long (just three chapters later) when human wickedness extends across the earth. Sin and evil look like they have won. Man has chosen to follow his own will and do what seems right in his own eyes rather than choosing to depend on God. We read,
It broke God's heart. - Genesis 6:6
In this flood of grief God felt, He decides to wipe human race from the earth. Destroy all created things. This flood so great in His heart, it would mean the end of a promise, a promise unfulfilled. If God had cleared the earth, the child of Eve would never come. For God to even consider this, the pain He felt was great. His heart was broken. So very broken, tears covered the earth - for forty days and forty nights they fell. And it would have been the end had God not found one man who would depend on Him, one man who did not trust his own understanding and do what seemed right in his own eyes but trusted God - even when God told him to build an ark when no tears were falling.
An ark of wood which became an extension of God's saving grace for man so that God's covenant with man would not be broken.
And unbroken it came. A covenant from long ago. Christ came as our ark - son of God, born of one of Eve's descendants - in a manger. The poetry here profound.
Waves of pain
a flood of sin
our tears in anguish and desperate for help covered this land
and Christ came
a newborn baby, resting in a manger
wrapped in swaddling cloth, resting in a cradle
to be a cradle for all mankind
over the flood they could not overcome on their own.
Our saving grace
once and for all
again made of wood.
On the cross,
God's heart broke
in two.
The blood of Christ
a flood of love,
the holy intervention for our souls -
to not just one day
be reconnected with God in heaven
but to know this connection
with God
here and now.
One final thought today - all other religions strive to get out of this world and into heaven, but Christianity stands alone. God did what could not be done and brought heaven to earth, Christ as an ark, a cradle for us. Christ, the Man of Suffering, so we would not suffer alone.
Christmas is not the absence of suffering, it is the advent - the coming of our saving grace so that we would not suffer alone, so that we would not suffer without the very real and deeply intimate comfort of heaven.
Tidings - waves - floods
of comfort and joy and peace -
this is my prayer for us today.
May the love of Christ - the gift of reconciliation and the very real experience of the with-God life strengthen you today and fill you with joy and peace as you go forth to others who are suffering without the comfort of heaven. May we share the gift of Christmas with them so they would no longer have to suffer alone but know rest is not a one day, when I die thing, but the gift Christ died to give us here. Amen and amen.
The good life, well it starts with a good day. Then another. Then another. Let's choose to live #TheGoodDay one day at a time.
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