A recent
widow celebrating Christmas without her beloved spouse this month. A husband
and father lying in an ICU hospital bed fighting for breath in hopes of staying
off a ventilator while his wife battles the disease alone at home, and their
grown children unable to visit either parent. An elderly lady lying on her
deathbed while her children know her time will be coming soon. Families unable
to spend Christmas with their loved ones due to the virus. Business owners
working hard to stay afloat in the midst of a second wave of the pandemic.
Christmas parties and celebrations cancelled. Traditions broken. What is there
to celebrate this Christmas?
I did not
have to make up the above circumstances. These people are among my friends and
acquaintances. I’m sure you could add to this list. Christmas has always been
hard for people at various points in their lives due to difficulty and
challenges, but this year the grief and hardships seem so much more universal
with the effects of this terrible virus, the record numbers in the hospital in
our own city, as well as the financial and social challenges the disease has
brought about. So how do we approach a Christmas that doesn’t look like the
kind of Christmas we know and love with its lack of Christmas parties and concerts,
trips to see Santa, fighting the crowds for last-minute shopping, and gathering
with extended family for Christmas?
But what if
those things are not actually necessary for a true and meaningful celebration
of Christmas? And furthermore, what if
the message of Christmas actually speaks hope into the situations in which we
find ourselves? What if the truth of Christmas can be a balm to the one lying
in an ICU bed on Christmas Eve? What if the meaning of the holiday can bring
joy to the one alone in his apartment in a nursing home? What if the family who can’t travel to the
grandparents’ house for Christmas can find unique comfort this year in
remembering what Christmas is all about? Perhaps this year, we have all the
more reason to celebrate. For against this dark current backdrop the beauty of
what happened at Christmas can shine all the brighter. When the family
gatherings, the hustle and bustle, the parties, and the special services are
replaced with stories of hospital beds, separation from family, loneliness, and
sickness, doesn’t it overwhelm us all the more that God Himself came down into
this mess to live among us and to save us from this broken and fallen world?
It is
precisely because of Christmas that we can face days such as these, filled with
hope. God did not leave us on our own, stuck with the consequences of man’s
fall into sin. For God so loved the
world, that He himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, came down to rescue us.
That is the good news this Christmas and every Christmas. We have a Rescuer, a
Savior. One who came down to save us from our biggest problem, our sin, and who
will one day save us from this broken world as well. This world is nothing
compared to the one that is to come. We can face its hardships, knowing that
God will use them for good, and knowing that these trials do not have the final
word. So, however we find ourselves celebrating Christmas this year, I pray
that we would be filled with the hope that can only come from understanding
that the message of Christmas does not dim when things look bleak. No, it’s
perhaps in these moments that its beauty shines all the more clearly.
“For unto
you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord”
(Luke 2:11).
Oh come, let
us adore Him!
--Amy O'Rear
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