During a time of year when we sing about joy and tell the merry gentlemen not to be dismayed, why do many feel separation and sadness more than usual? What are we to do with grief, sin, and suffering after a year that has been challenging financially, spiritually, relationally? Our negative feelings don’t seem to fit under the tree.Yet when we step back, it seems that recognizing all of the difficulties we try to hide from is the key to finding true joy this holiday season.Why? Because God did not send Jesus to live and die for whole, fulfilled, perfect people. The miracle of Christmas, rather, is that Christ came into a world of darkness, greed, sickness, death, and sin to save us.The fact is “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We are living in a sinful world where suffering and death are inevitable. But when Mary was pregnant, the angel told Joseph: “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).I don’t know about you, but sometimes I forget what the name Jesus means—Salvation, Messiah. He came to save us from sorrows, from brokenness, from sin, from death. And while Jesus himself warns us that “in this life [we] will have trouble,” He urges us to “take heart” because He has “overcome the world” (John 16:33).
I still long to hear my mother’s voice each Christmas, and I occasionally feel bogged down by the effects of sin in my life and in the world. But this Christmas, I am trying something new with the difficult feelings that surface. Instead of boxing them up, instead of putting them away never to unwrap them, I am going to look at them and give thanks. Not because they are attractive, but because they remind me that I am a girl who needs a Savior. My Messiah, whose name reminds me of my rescue, came so that, through His abundant grace, I might also overcome the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment