I can’t say my holiday season has been terribly overwhelming this year. I’m mostly on top of presents. We had our big birthday party over the weekend (three of four kids born in December can get complicated), and other family gatherings too. We’re busy with a variety of events and activities. It’s not a problem, really. Just normal.
But for family and friends … things have been hard this year. Very hard.
Loved ones died this year. Major illnesses are hanging like a storm cloud. Farms and businesses struggled. Money is tight.
And for the most part, I can only watch. I don’t have an obvious way to engage or help, and I certainly can’t fix any of it. The grain bin fire was a total loss. I can’t heal cancer or get someone off a ventilator. I can’t bring back the one who walked away. It’s a hard Christmas. Hard for them to go through and hard for me to watch.
So what do we do with the hard Christmases?
The advent reading plan I’ve been doing this month keeps returning to the truth that much of the Christmas story deals with disappointments. Real, painful disappointment.
- Zachariah and Elizabeth had been barren for decades.
- Mary lost her reputation. And she had no way to know that Joseph would still marry her.
- Joseph lost his “good” reputation, a “good” match to a “good” girl, and the “good” life he’d expected.
- They were sent on an 80-mile journey in the last weeks of a pregnancy — so much for a comfortable, normal birth.
On and on it goes. The story we celebrate is indeed full of miracles and joy and light. But all of those things stand out as they do because they appear against a backdrop of real life, hard and dark and full of disappointments.
Maybe you understand. Maybe your Christmas is hard this year.
If so, I am sorry. That pain is heavy and unkind, and I wish it were not so. But it is so for many, many people. This year, I have needed to remind myself that the great hope of Christmas, the great promise Jesus brought with him that night, is that he will always show up in our darkness and disappointment. Even more, he can redeem it, restore it, and bring beauty out of our ashes.
It’s been a helpful place to rest this advent season, even though my disappointments are very small compared to the ones my friends and loved ones are carrying. But little disappointments are also important to God. And whether our burden is big or small, he will meet us. It may be in a most unexpected way (like a baby in a manger), but he will always come.
Engage with me: Is your Christmas hard this year? Can you identify with the real people who lived the Christmas story? What does it mean to you that God sent his greatest gift into our deepest disappointments?
