A sound was heard in Ramah, weeping and much lament. Rachel weeping for her children, Rachel refusing all solace, her children gone, dead and buried. - Matthew 2:18 (Msg version).
Christmas is here. The twinkling lights, the music, the smell of pine needles and gingerbread. And sugar. So much sugar. It’s the most wonderful time of the year - right? Well, not always.
As much as I love the wow of Christmas, it’s easy to forget that all the beauty of this season had a starting place and it was not in the lowly manger of our savior. Even the Message paraphrase of the bible stops short of referencing the North pole. No, our modern traditions, ostensibly celebrating the birth of Christ, were manufactured - a conflux of commercialism and nostalgia designed to overwhelm our limbic system and culminate in an joygasm that translates into shopping.
For example, did you know that Christmas lights were created as an advertisement? They were essentially a way of promoting Thomas Edison’s relatively new invention of the electric light bulb. Nor should we forget that the modern depiction of Santa Claus, a chubby, red-faced grandfather adorned in red and white, was created by Coca-Cola to sell more sodas.1 Everything about Christmas is meant to get us excited and into a spending frenzy.
But what do we do when the charm and merriment aren’t enough to lift our spirits?
Are we off somehow if melancholy feels more appropriate than elation? Some of us have a very different relationship with Christmas than Hallmark intended. For us, the holiday is tinged by loss, separation from lovers, heartbreak, isolation from family members with whom there can be no reconciliation, or the memories of a traumatic childhood. For some, Christmas looks like holding the hand of our beloved who lays unconscious in a hospital bed - the soft crooning of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas replaced by the rhythmic beep of life-sustaining devices. For those living under the shadows of Christmas Past or the uncertainty of the future: Please know I see you. More importantly, God sees you too.
I have a very strange relationship with Christmas. As a young child, my family went over the top for Christmas. Not just by way of extravagant presents, but with flamboyant decorations inside and out. You know those lighted dear lawn ornaments that only the coolest homes have at Christmastime? As far as I can tell, my parents made the very first ones to exist from chicken wire and Christmas lights, mounted on the roof of our house sometime around 1983. Oh, to have the patent on those. But around the time I turned ten, my family found some piece of hyper-evangelical propaganda that made them believe that Christmas should not be celebrated with fanfare. Logically, if we weren’t celebrating the birth of Christ with decorations and accoutrements, none of the other holidays rate high enough for celebration either - including birthdays. So, until about the time that I was a Junior in college, my family didn’t celebrate…anything. While I love my family of origin deeply, I still have to wrestle with the fact that a chunk of my formative years were spent without Christmas. So when my wife and I started our family, I was a little at a loss for how to appreciate it. I’m still figuring it out.
Twelve years ago, my father-in-law passed on the week of Thanksgiving. He was a kind, wise, caring man that I was so honored to have known and loved. While more than a decade has passed, the annual amalgamation of NewThanksMasYear still arrives with a beautiful, but somber, reminder of his absence. Yet another reason why Christmas will always also be a time of lament in our household.
The Lord Sees the Meek and Lowly.
In the book of Matthew, we’re reminded that the first Christmas was more bleak than blithe. Bad enough to be laid in a trough as a makeshift bassinette, or hunted after by a king. But Jesus was born into the sorrow of a community grieving the gross injustice of genocide. When Herod was unable to locate the one prophesied to become King of the Jewish people, he ordered the death of every male child under two years old throughout his kingdom. Scholars differ on how many children were murdered as a result of this decree, but some estimate between 14,000 and 144,000. The quantity of lives lost is, of course, not the point. Rather, it is that while hope had come to the world it was not without great cost.
Said plainly, the first Christmas was not the festive celebration we’ve become accustomed to. For Mary, Joseph, and the Jewish community it was a wearisome ordeal overshadowed by exhaustion, fear, and uncertainty. Perhaps it was for this very reason that Yahweh sent the Magi and shepherds (Luke 2) to find Jesus, providing comfort and encouragement to these slightly terrified newborn parents2 just trying to figure it all out. And right around the time that Mary finally gets to take a nap, in walks this kid to play his drum for her. All she could do was smile and nod, praying he'd wrap it up while the ox and mule kept time.
For those of us who just can’t ginny up the energy to glow this Christmas season, you were never meant to and you’re not alone. Christ, who entered our world at the fringes, quietly with grief as a backdrop, remains Emmanuel - God with us. He sees us in our lament this season and occupies that space with us. If that speaks to you, please know that you are deeply loved by God and God does not expect more from you than what little you are able to bring. May you be filled with peace and rest in this holiday. Blessings and Merry Christmas.
Thats “pop” if you’re from the North.
Because aren’t all newborn parents at least slightly terrified?
Thank you thank you for thiese profound observations. There is nothing about Jesus’ conception and birth that isn’t nice, neat, gentle or mild. It is a scandal, challenging every sensibility of the past few centuries. It’s been years since we’ve had a tree, but we do celebrate Christmas Eve or day with our church and exchange a comparatively few number of gifts with family,NO BIG LETTERS, and nay handmade cards or small gifts with close friends. The commercialism of the season is sickening to my husband and I, especially the car commercials! But I’ve grown to love Advent, it’s new start of the church yer and call to consider the season, the kairos of our lives and the world. Old wounds and losses f loved ones not long before Advent and one on C(ristmas night (in church no less) have left me melancholy, but I hope, not cynical or bitter. Just realistic, more contemplative but asking what the condition of the world will be next year, and wondering how we, the church, will be lamenting. It’s not a dualistic choice: we can lament the violence, hate and injustice of our world that seems to be running off the rails (while we wrestle with God and fight the seasonal depression and anxiety, especially of the last few years),;and still “celebrate” our Lord’s coming with a deep joy and peace that I hope will be increasingly transformative as I enter these “older years.” (BTW , I’m in the hospital over Christmas- had back surgery yesterday. My goal is to cooperate with PT and OT for an uneventful recovery and to build up strength— physical and spiritual.) May you know the joy of Jesus Christ at this Christmastide!
Thank you for the vulnerability. I see you.