How’s your Christmas spirit kicking in? If you started listening to Christmas music on Thanksgiving, or if you’ve already put up your tree, mailed your cards, and are shopping with joy and money in your wallet… I’m guessing you might not need to read any further. If, however, you are already set to hammer the radio with the next “It’s the best time of the year…” read on!
I love Christmas! Yes, I do. I am a believer in all that is sacred and mysterious and good and loving. I believe. I believe with wide eyes and an eager heart. My ears are always listening for sleigh bells, but especially on Christmas Eve. I believe that miracles happen in the most ordinary of circumstances to the most ordinary of people. And I’m talking little whispered miracles, and you-cannot-grasp-the-magnitude-of-this miracles. I believe in the power of what we cannot possibly understand, and the gifts of sheer grace. I believe that at the core of every human heart, there is holy ground from which humanity resides. I believe that to hope for delight, and to be a delight, are foundational to full lives. I believe that Christmas comes every year so that we might return to something tender and necessary and real.
And, this morning, I opened my Bible and read the Christmas story in Luke. Thank goodness! No blaring holiday songs. No tinsel. No shopping. It’s just this beautiful, complicated story about Mary and Joseph and God at work in and through them. It’s a story full of blessing and tension. It’s our story. It’s a gift to you and me as we find our way through this glorious, taxing life. It might help you to read it, if you are feeling lost in this season of happy. It helps me. I’m not feeling so joyful today. I’m still unemployed, and as time continues to march on, it becomes more and more difficult to not feel outcast, to not feel as though I have failed or that I am not worthy. It is easy to feel judged. Mary felt judged. Joseph almost bailed. I am sure they felt outcast in their society. They were not wealthy. And yet, they were faithful to what they knew was true and holy. They were faithful to who they were and how they were blessed. Even so, their child, this child of God’s love and light, was born in a barn. As crazy as that is, it makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s in the paring down of life that we seem to grow quiet enough to find God, to find what’s been calling to us all along.
For many, Christmas is not the happiest time of the year. For many, Christmas is the hardest time of the year for numerous reasons, but most of all because we are supposed to be happy. Maybe you, too, are out of work. Maybe you are simply short on funds and can’t afford the nice gifts you’d like to give your loved ones. Maybe you are grieving. Maybe your family is at odds. Maybe there is illness. Maybe you yearn for simplicity, but have yet to figure out how to untangle the Christmas lights or the lists that continue to be generated. Maybe you feel plain empty and haven’t a clue as to what might fill you with deep gladness.
If at this point, you are ready for the recipe that will set this all right, I’m sorry to say I’m going to disappoint you. I can’t tell you how to get well or rich or stop missing the one you love. I can’t tell you how to get a job or how to feel happy. I can’t tell you what you most need and how to fulfill it. But I can tell you, that there is a gift here. I can tell you that right where you and I sit is grace. It is in what we don’t have, that we find all that we do have. It is in feeling lost, that we find our truest selves. It is in the scarcity of things that we remember how to give in holy ways.
Christmas is going to keep coming. What most needs to be made ready?
I love Christmas! Yes, I do. I am a believer in all that is sacred and mysterious and good and loving. I believe. I believe with wide eyes and an eager heart. My ears are always listening for sleigh bells, but especially on Christmas Eve. I believe that miracles happen in the most ordinary of circumstances to the most ordinary of people. And I’m talking little whispered miracles, and you-cannot-grasp-the-magnitude-of-this miracles. I believe in the power of what we cannot possibly understand, and the gifts of sheer grace. I believe that at the core of every human heart, there is holy ground from which humanity resides. I believe that to hope for delight, and to be a delight, are foundational to full lives. I believe that Christmas comes every year so that we might return to something tender and necessary and real.
And, this morning, I opened my Bible and read the Christmas story in Luke. Thank goodness! No blaring holiday songs. No tinsel. No shopping. It’s just this beautiful, complicated story about Mary and Joseph and God at work in and through them. It’s a story full of blessing and tension. It’s our story. It’s a gift to you and me as we find our way through this glorious, taxing life. It might help you to read it, if you are feeling lost in this season of happy. It helps me. I’m not feeling so joyful today. I’m still unemployed, and as time continues to march on, it becomes more and more difficult to not feel outcast, to not feel as though I have failed or that I am not worthy. It is easy to feel judged. Mary felt judged. Joseph almost bailed. I am sure they felt outcast in their society. They were not wealthy. And yet, they were faithful to what they knew was true and holy. They were faithful to who they were and how they were blessed. Even so, their child, this child of God’s love and light, was born in a barn. As crazy as that is, it makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s in the paring down of life that we seem to grow quiet enough to find God, to find what’s been calling to us all along.
For many, Christmas is not the happiest time of the year. For many, Christmas is the hardest time of the year for numerous reasons, but most of all because we are supposed to be happy. Maybe you, too, are out of work. Maybe you are simply short on funds and can’t afford the nice gifts you’d like to give your loved ones. Maybe you are grieving. Maybe your family is at odds. Maybe there is illness. Maybe you yearn for simplicity, but have yet to figure out how to untangle the Christmas lights or the lists that continue to be generated. Maybe you feel plain empty and haven’t a clue as to what might fill you with deep gladness.
If at this point, you are ready for the recipe that will set this all right, I’m sorry to say I’m going to disappoint you. I can’t tell you how to get well or rich or stop missing the one you love. I can’t tell you how to get a job or how to feel happy. I can’t tell you what you most need and how to fulfill it. But I can tell you, that there is a gift here. I can tell you that right where you and I sit is grace. It is in what we don’t have, that we find all that we do have. It is in feeling lost, that we find our truest selves. It is in the scarcity of things that we remember how to give in holy ways.
Christmas is going to keep coming. What most needs to be made ready?
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