“Lord Jesus, Master of both the light and the darkness,
send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas:
we who have so much to do and seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day;
we who are anxious over many things look forward to your coming among us.
We who are blessed in so many ways, long for the complete joy of your kingdom.
We whose hearts are heavy seek the joy of your presence.
We are your people, walking in darkness, yet seeking the light.
To you we say, ‘Come Lord Jesus!’” –Henri Nouwen_
This is the prayer I chose for this month’s faith formation session with the parents in our church. After reading it to them, I asked what struck them about it, and they mentioned the need for quiet, and how light and darkness co-exist.
At this time of year, when the world is telling us to be “of good cheer”, we can feel like something is wrong with us if we don’t have visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads 24/7. It seems so unfair when tragedy strikes in December: we want the whole world to be on pause and feel nothing but joy and peace and hope this month.
While it is common to wish each other joy, peace and hope at Christmas, that doesn’t mean we experience those feelings because the world has suddenly become perfect. Advent and the Christmas season remind us that we can have joy, peace and hope in the midst of less than ideal circumstances. In fact, those are the times it is most important to hang on to those qualities: when we genuinely feel it the least.
In the last couple of weeks, I have been to one visitation, helped two families plan funerals, and sent sympathy cards to three more who lost loved ones. My maternal grandmother died three days before Christmas when I was a freshman in college. It’s gutwrenching to lose someone at “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”.
But Christmas has never been about perfection. Think about it: the Nativity Story is far from perfect. Having been pregnant twice myself, I’m quite certain that riding a donkey over rocky terrain for countless miles through the night would not be an idyllic experience. Throw in the stigma of being with child without marriage, and no place to give birth to said child, and the scenario becomes even more challenging. That peaceful manger was most likely a barn (I’ve also heard it could have been a cave), where Mary and Joseph were surrounded by animals who smelled, pooped, brayed and baa-ed.
The chances that the actual birth of Jesus was anything like the Nativity scenes we set up under our trees is pretty much nill. Jesus was born into a troubled, violent and despairing world: much like the one we live in today. However, we gloss that over. We sing about silent nights and winter wonderlands, when the first Christmas was anything but that.
In her book “Accidental Saints”, Nadia Bolz-Weber writes bluntly about the chaos that Jesus was born into, and how we conveniently make that reality into a neat and tidy story instead. She points out that the kings who came from the East with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, were probably magicians or astrologers instead. They represent a segment of society that doesn’t fit in nicely with the Christmas story. (Even though Jesus came for all: especially those who were marginalized and lived on the edge.)
Bolz-Weber goes on to remind us that the king we don’t mention nearly as often is Herod: the bloodthirsty tyrant who is responsible for the slaying of a generation of first born sons. This king didn’t bring any gifts. Instead, he sent this brand new little family fleeing for their lives.
In the midst of the Christmas season, between Christmas Day and the Feast of the Holy Family, is the remembrance of the Holy Innocents on December 28. It is a poignant reminder in the midst of merrymaking that heartache and grief exist alongside it.
I point these things out not to bring you down this holiday season, but hopefully, to help you breathe a little easier and take some of the pressure off yourself to make every day in December picture perfect.
Feeling sadness or loneliness or anger as we await the birth of our Lord is okay. Jesus Christ can handle us in all of our messiness and imperfection.
Jesus is known as the Light of the World. There has to be darkness in order for the light to be noticeable. The darkness in our world isn’t going away anytime soon. But the Light? The Light will not be overcome by it.
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