Merry Christmas!
I don't know about you, but I have felt different this Christmas season. Maybe its the state of the economy, the stress that everyone seems to be under. Or maybe I feel differently because of what happened to our tree this year.
We bought a large tree, much taller than our normal tree. We thought that we could place it by our staircase. All three of my boys liked the idea of a big tree, even my husband JD was OK with it. It took us hours to decorate.
I was sitting in the kitchen resting for a moment on Christmas Eve morning, when I saw it happen. The tree just slowly began to fall. I felt like I was watching in slow motion as the thing crashed to the ground, 0rnaments smashing and scattering, water everywhere.
I hollered at the boys to come help. Max, my littlest one, saw the mess and said, "Mom! Is Christmas over now?"
His comment made me so mad that I picked up the whole tree and stood it upright again. I don't know how I did that. I remember yelling as I lifted it. Bionic Momma- that's what I became in that moment. I couldn't stand to see the look on Max's face as he asked that question. It was scary to me that my son thought Christmas was about the tree and the trappings.
But we all tend to link Christmas with stuff. Christmas means shopping. Christmas means new stuff wrapped in packages. Christmas is supposed to be this perfect day, idyllic in fact- that's what the commercials tell us. In fact, we pile our expectations of Christmas so high that they are bound to come down crashing.
A lady I know went to the Post Office a month ago to order Christmas stamps. They asked her what kind of stamp she'd like and she said, "I'd like stamps of the Madonna, please." The young woman behind the counter replied, "Ma'am, we don't carry stamps of people that haven't died yet and Madonna is still performing."
What is happening to us? Have we completely forgotten what Christmas is about?
Christmas is about something that hits you in the gut, something so incredible that it can only be caught in glimpses.
I caught a glimpse of Christmas years ago when I went to visit the home of a man who had been diagnosed with cancer. He was about to undergo radical chemotherapy. He was a tall, handsome man with a head of majestic white hair. When I came, he was sitting in his bedroom with his thirty-year-old son.
"Kate," he said. "I can't stand to watch my hair fall out, so I'm just going to shave it. Will you come with me?"
I followed him into the bathroom. He sat down at the vanity and began to shear off his beautiful white hair. His son stood in the doorway, tears streaming down his face. Then his son said, "Wait! Dad, just wait a minute!"
His son went somewhere, I guess to his suitcase and came back with another razer in his hand. He stood directly behind his father in front of the mirror and began to shave his own head.
"You shave, I shave." He said.
When his father protested, the young man said, "Look, Dad. I can't make this better for you. I can't take away your pain. But I can be there with you, every step of the way. So, you shave-I shave."
That's what Christmas is about. God saw us suffering in a world that is broken of our own disobedience. God could not fix the world for us, for we would learn nothing and we would not be free. So God came, just to be with us.
God shaved down to the form of a tiny baby, born in one of the most violent parts of the world, born to a couple who had no place to sleep, born in the dirt of a cave where they kept the animals.
Have you ever noticed that when someone you love is suffering, giving advice doesn't work? Trying to fix others problems usually backfires. But you can be there. You can just be there with them, and somehow, miraculously, that seems to help.
Remember what Christmas is really about. It is about God saying to us.
"I am here."
And once Jesus came, He never really left. He's always been with us, in one form or another. Didn't Jesus himself say it at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Lo I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
Once you realize that Jesus is here, it hits you right in the gut. And you realize that you are never, ever alone.
