Christmas time is here.
Happiness and cheer.
Fun for all that children call,
Their favorite time of year…
Such say the lyrics of the familiar song from a Charlie Brown Christmas. Christmas time is here and yet it remains, as one who is far beyond his childhood years, my favorite time of year!
There is something about Christmas that makes us revert to childhood, to magical memories, to sentimental nostalgia, and to seemingly idealistic times. And for many, the Christmas season, with all its reminiscence and romance, gives hope that life can once again have that innocence, simplicity and promise of those distant childhood memories.
So many of our Christmas thoughts are washed in sentimentality and unrealistic idealism. Even as many look at the Christmas stories, they divorce them from the harsh reality and meaning that accompanied those significant events.
The Magi journeying from the east following the star to come worship the Messiah is wrapped in almost fairy-tale like adventure, instead of the severe reality of traveling a long and treacherous expedition, away from their homeland and families for months. The shepherds receiving that glorious sky-lit angelic message that a Savior has been born to you, Christ the Lord is viewed in Sci-Fi fantasy mode, instead of understanding the costly reality placed on these uneducated herders to go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened…and to make known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And of course, the story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem’s manger is often bathed in the glowing highlights and warm ambience of a Thomas Kincaid painting, instead of the ironic reality and utter loneliness of Mary and Joseph bringing into the world God’s Son in the worst of circumstances.
The point is Christmas has a way of causing people to divorce themselves from the reality of their lives. It is as if the world takes a month out of a year to throw a festive celebration and pretend that all is well … let’s have a holly jolly Christmas, it’s the best time of the year! But the original Christmas was not submerged in American sentimentalism or religious superficiality, but it occurred in the midst of unbelievable spiritual conflict and warfare… it was born in the midst of death and darkness and despair. As Isaiah’s Christmas prophecy says…
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.”
The truth is, people may become nostalgic and sentimental at Christmas (and there’s nothing necessarily wrong with some nostalgia and sentiment), but in the end, the magical feelings of Christmas cannot hide a world in the midst of tragedy, disease, brokenness, divorce, and war etc. Most of the world celebrates Christmas in a way that portends utopia feelings of a world without the curse (the curse of sin brought by the Fall). However, reality shows us that there’s brokenness, there’s pain, there’s tension, there’s conflict and yes, there’s the curse. Without it, Christmas doesn’t seem real to life. Isaac Watts, the famous hymnist, wrote one of our most familiar and beloved Christmas hymns in the early 18th century – Joy to the World.
A portion of the lyrics say:
Joy to the World, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room, And Heaven and nature sing, And Heaven and nature sing, And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.
No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found, Far as the curse is found, Far as, far as, the curse is found.
I love Christmas! I even get nostalgic and sentimental – at times immersing myself in those childhood “magical moments” of Christmases past. But the reason I can, with legitimacy, sing Joy to the World, is not because of any utopia feelings brought about by all the nostalgia, but I can have pure joy because He (Jesus) comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found. Christmas has lasting meaning and joy when we see and experience what Christ has done against the backdrop of a broken and cursed world.
This Christmas, there will be people we know, who for a brief season, will attempt to escape the brokenness of their lives. They may get some momentary relief…. they may have some high hopes that these dreamlike feelings will continue, but the reality of their cursed world and broken lives will inevitably return like an incurable disease. But we can enter into their lives, move past their walls of shallow nostalgia and religious superficially, and remind them that real joy is available for their cursed and broken existence…that His blessing can flow as far as the cursed is found! Let’s take advantage of the “windows of opportunity” that God gives us this Christmas season and tell those drowning in hopeless nostalgia, Joy to the world, the Lord has come…!
Paula and I want to wish each of you a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.
In His Love,
Wes
Dr. Wes Rankin
Association Mission Strategist
Concord Baptist Association
219-615-9774 -Mobile
615-890-6409 - Office
wes.rankin@concordbaptists.org
concordbaptists.org