Long awaited Christmas has arrived. For some it is a time that brings joy and warmth, family and tradition, gift giving, sumptuous meals and fun-filled gatherings. But for others, Christmas, despite its glitter and its magic, leaves them cold, and the coming of Christmas makes them emotionally weary, and they would rather just get it over. Christmas could be a painful time that often brings feelings of sadness, melancholia and deep loneliness. Christmas has a way of opening up old wounds that have not been completely healed, but we would rather forget.
Perhaps we still yearn to have that great loving and welcoming family we wished we had, but when we look around all we see is brokenness. Perhaps we remember our loved ones who have died, leaving us aching for their presence, missing so much their embrace, touch and kiss that will never come again, at least not on this side of life. Or perhaps, since Christmas occurs at the dead of winter, we are confronted with our mortality, especially some of us whose bodies are breaking due to illness or the natural wear and tear of life. All these thoughts can dampen hope and joy of the season. Yet, we continue to hope for that life-giving Word in the midst of the long dark and cold wintry night of the soul.
The all too familiar Christmas story tells us that the Word so long awaited by the people of God living in grips of hopelessness came in the middle of a long cold wintry night. God came at night. He came, and He often comes in the middle of our darkness. God came and comes to His people in the midst of their deepest despair, and loneliness, and suffering. God’s spoken Word of love came as the faint voice in a poor manger. God’s spoken Word came as a call…a cry of a tiny, vulnerable infant who shares in our own vulnerability. The night was turned into the morning by the birth of the Word of hope in the middle of hopelessness.
The promise of God in the Christmas story is that he will come to us in our night of faith, that God will be born once again in the emptiness of our souls and aching hearts. The promise of Christmas is that there is a breathless love that awaits souls struggling in the dark of life. When we are feeling lonely and unloved, we read the Christmas story to remind ourselves that there is indeed a Lover waiting for us…the Lover in a manger in Bethlehem who awaits us with His loving arms.
The Spirit of God planted the Word of love in the womb of a woman. And, it is by this Spirit that Mary gave birth to the Word made flesh, Jesus,…the Joy and Hope of the world. This very same Spirit plants the Word of love and hope of in the wombs of OUR hearts, and the Spirit enables us to give birth to joy and hope. “The Love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given us.” (Romans 5:5)
We all have been given the gift of the Spirit in that we all have been given hearts with a great capacity to give love and receive love. Even as we ourselves feel emptiness and loneliness, we still can give out love and hope. We may never be able to take away each other’s unique pain or suffering, but we could speak the Word of love and hope to someone who needs it desperately. When we do reach out in love, we give birth anew to Him in the very act of giving love and hope and God’s love can be felt by someone yearning for love primarily through us.
Merry Christmas to you all. And, may God bless you and your family with His great love.
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