Christmas can be a wonderful time of reunion with family and friends. We hear the songs singing of joy and gladness. Of happy moments and merry making. But, it can also be an extremely lonely time. It can be colored by separation, by loss, by disappointments or failures, by broken relationships. Christmas is not an easy time for everyone. I know it’s not for me. Especially, not this year. Coming through a year of profound loss and feeling the weight of grief. Knowing what was supposed to be and isn’t. It has given me a different perspective on the celebration of Christ’s birth. It’s made me more reflective. I’m looking at things differently than I have before. Seeing that, while Christmas is a time of great Joy, mingled in that joy can also be heartache. I find myself sitting. And wondering. Was that first Christmas so different?
I wonder what challenges Mary would have faced, in the days and weeks after giving birth. Exhausted, in a place that was not home, surrounded by strangers, missing the comfort of her mother and family, or even just the familiarity of her own village. Scripture doesn’t tell us how long they stayed in the stable, but it was likely longer than just the one night. Or what of Joseph? Did he lie awake that first night wondering what the next day would bring? How he could care for his wife and new babe in an overcrowded town, so far from everything he had carefully prepared for their new life together?
I wonder if Mary knew that she had to let her baby go, even as she held Him for the first time. Did her heart cry out with joy and sorrow together when her newborn child was placed in her arms? His birth was celebrated with a choir of angels declaring Good News of Great Joy. And yet only a little over a month later, as she would enter the Temple to dedicate her son, Simeon would tell her “Listen carefully: this Child is appointed and destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign that is to be opposed— 35 and a sword [of deep sorrow] will pierce through your own soul—so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” (Luke 2:34-35 AMP).
Or maybe for Mary and Joseph it was a time of new beginnings. Maybe despite all the challenges, Mary was also filled with relief. Here in Bethlehem, in the midst of strangers from all over the land returned for the census, people did not know their story. Here the stigma of having become pregnant before her marriage ceremony would not color the celebration of Jesus’ birth. Instead, He was joyfully received. And news of His birth was published all along the countryside by grateful shepherds.
I wonder, what might the Father’s heart have felt as He sent His Son down to earth? Knowing that He would be rejected, scorned, and tortured at the hands of men. Knowing that in 33 short human years, He would need to turn His face away from His Beloved Son. Heart wrenching, as Jesus would cry out in agony, staked to a wooden cross. But no one else could see that yet. But neither could anyone see the glorious Son Rise on the first day of the week.
“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.” John 3:16-17 (MSG)
Here in this passage, Christmas and the Cross meet. The reason and the execution. To celebrate one without acknowledging the other is to deny the power of both. Because they are entwined with each other. Joy and pain mingled together. The Father GAVE. With full knowledge of all His Gift entailed. And somehow knowing this, my grief is lessened. Knowing this, I know I am not alone.
Recently I read something that Ann Voskamp wrote about those deep, painful places in our lives. When we are in those places where it’s easy to feel abandoned, we can remember that we have not been abandoned, but rather placed. Placed. To be found by Him. An opportunity for the Glory of God to shine through our broken places. And in the shining through, God not only shows up, He REVEALS Himself to us and to the world around us. And in that place of brokenness, in our surrender, that is when He reveals the truest essence of Who He is. In our surrender, He shines and He mends and He takes what was intended to destroy us and turns it into something beautiful. Like shattered shards of glass scattered on the ground when they catch the Sun’s rays. Turning the brokenness into indescribable beauty. And the wonderful thing is that He does not leave all our broken shards scattered on the ground. In our surrender, He gathers each and every one and He mends and He heals and He restores. The process of putting back together leaving a map of trails, evidence of our brokenness; each crack and fracture becoming a testimony of His faithfulness. Telling the story of His Love. If we will Trust. Surrender. Accept His great Gift. And then we find, in time, that He has filled the spaces in between.
So, I sit, And I wonder. Maybe there is room for both at Christmas. That in the midst of the pain, I can let myself be caught up in the Wonder. I can partake of the Joy, even in the depths of sorrow. Because, I know that He has gone before. He has lost and loved and laughed and cried too. So even if the season disappoints, if family and friends are far away, if the celebrating is hard, I can still rejoice in this. I have been given the Greatest Gift of all – Jesus. And He is making beauty of my brokenness.
“You are never abandoned in a place to be forgotten — you were placed in this place to be found.
And now is Advent.
And He is always coming for you, Brave One — His healing, breaking free ways are always coming for you.” ~ Ann Voskamp
#TheBrokenWay
http://bit.ly/PickUpTheBrokenWay
from the post: “The Secret Truth that Cures Feelings of Abandonment — & what has to be said about Advent” -> bit.ly/SecretCureToFeelingAbandoned
“What was intended to tear you apart– God intends it to set you apart.
What has torn you — God makes a thin place to see glory.
The places where you’re torn to pieces can be thin places where you touch *the peace of God.*
God is never absent,
never impotent,
never distant.
You can never be undone.
No matter what intends to harm you?
God’s arms have you.”
If God can transfigure the greatest evil into the greatest Gift, He intends to turn whatever you’re experiencing now into a gift. You cannot be undone.
And we could feel it right now– His everlasting arms underneath of us…~ Ann Voskamp
~ excerpt from: bit.ly/GreatestGiftforyou
Of Shattered Things 