At our pastor’s meeting yesterday, there was a general consensus that the Christmas season didn’t have its usual feel. There were a lot of different reasons for this around the room: one guy just had a wedding for his daughter, another is dealing with health issues, and one (me) just moved is unsettled in the new home. Some just feel like traditional rhythms don’t have the same energy and life that they usually do.
I don’t think that this is limited to our little group. While there are plenty of people who are fully engulfed in the most wonderful time of the year, many others feel bogged down. To follow our Fall focus on disillusionment: everything is not falling apart, but it also isn’t as it should be. This has taken a bit of the shine off of the season.
As we go through ADVENT, this longing for something better seems to be fitting. In the season of waiting, we are not supposed to find all of our joy in the earthly celebration. If we look at the events of the first Christmas, we see a lot of confusion and difficulty with the peace and love. As a matter of fact, the hope that Jesus brings only makes sense to a dissatisfied world.
Many of the feelings that I associate with Christmas are less about anticipation and more about fulfillment. I want to feel filled. I want to feel comforted. I want to feel satisfied and overjoyed with family, food, and gifts. While all of these things are an enjoyable part of Christmas, they can easily distract us from the brokenness all around us. The way we celebrate Christmas can make us forget that Jesus promise is not for a safe and happy holiday, but for a complete remaking of creation. As Joy to the World declares:
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.
We live under the curse; Christmas is God’s assurance that the curse will be fully lifted. I am not implying that we should turn Christmas into a time of lament, but that we shouldn’t try so hard to paper over the cracks either. The real feeling of Christmas is not syrup-sweet, but is a layered reality of rejoicing and weeping, with the promise that the coming of Jesus will lead to joy. Jesus says this to His disciples in John 16:
Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. | John 16:20–22
It is okay for Christmas to feel off. This should lead us to a hopeful anticipation for when our sorrow will be turned to joy. It’s not enough to fill the world with lights and sugar, we need the world to be healed. The good news of Christmas is that Jesus coming to earth is the means by which God will make all things new. As we remember Jesus first coming, we look forward to the next, when He will:
comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.