FInding Christmas in the Pain

But God has made clear his love to us, in that, when we were still sinners, Christ gave his life for us.

I've struggled some this year really finding Christmas the way I have in the past. Maybe its dorm life or business or not being at home, or maybe this discussion of Christmas versus Holidays and how maybe we stole the season by slapping the Christian label on things that we might not have earned the right to. But nevertheless. Its been different this year.

Coming home after being away at school for a while has proven to be a bit of an enlightening experience in terms of observation. Distance seems to create new eyes. As I step back and take a look at my family, how we interact, who we are together, it seems that the pain and the bitterness are so much clearer. Its like you can just see the mud flying across the room with new clarity. I mean, we've all known it was there before, but its strange to sit and the dinner table and find myself reeling, wishing there is some way I could call a time out.

Do you ever find yourself in the midst of something terrible? I mean, do you ever open your eyes, slowly turn around and realize the muck is all around you and no matter how hard you try, there will never be any way for you to clean it all up yourself, hard as you try? And not that I find myself free of guilt by any means, but I just look around and everything just seems beyond hope. How do you love in the midst of all the messed up lives? I find myself on the edge of this hole, the hole I have fallen in too many times. I stand on the edge between love and joining in the desolation.

And as I pictured myself there in the midst of all this trash heap that seems to have become of our wounds piled one upon the other, I think I am beginning to see a little better the healing that Jesus came to bring. This may seem like trite commentary on "what Christmas is all about," but seriously, I'm not sure we can really ever understand what Jesus did to come down here.

Jesus came down to this gutter of a world to stand in the midst of our pain. Its like entering a battle field and choosing to lay down right next to the dead bodies. I don't know if you have ever been in a place in your life where all you can do is look around at all the dead bodies. We haven't gotten a family portrait taken since I was about 6, but I think if we did today, it would look something like a gaggle from a hospital ward. This is the picture I see. And Jesus came down to pose with us.

Can you imagine what it would have been like for him, to wake up as a baby and hear Mary and Joseph fighting? To be carried through the overpacked streets of people arguing over prices, angry about the traffic? Romans 5:8 speaks about Jesus dying for us while we were still sinners, but I like the implications of taking that verse a bit further and thinking about the fact that he came to live with us while we were still sinners. He came and stood amoung the filth, amoung the wounds in order to bring us healing.

Honestly, I fear this may sound like all the other dry, old explanations we hear about Christmas, but there si something deeply meaningful and true when your eyes are open to the same kind of desolation. When I find myself totally beyond hope, beyond words, beyond any beneficial response to the axes I see swining all around me. People who need forgiveness. People who are afraid, people who are holding their wounds, trying to appear that they are holding themselves together, when everyone knows they have already fallen all over the floor. These are the people Jesus came to live among.

I've been struggling lately trying to figure out the rules of the quiet time. ANd it struck me as I poured all this out to God finally this morning, it occured to me that we find God closest when we let him into the real stuff of our lives. I find too often I ignore the stuff that is really bothering me in order to go through the right motions for God, hoping in some formula to still make me feel better. But I realized this morning that I know God's presence in my real life when I allow him in. When the time I spend with him is real and personal, when I really am brave enough to bring before him the things I don'tknow how to deal with, the ways that I have failed and will continue to fail without Him, then I find him living my life. If God cannot be in the most painful parts of my life, he cannot in my life at all.

And that is the thing about this God-Man coming to this earth. He knows. He understands what it is like. He has stood amid my family. He has sat at our dinner table. He has listened to our conversation. And he knows what it is like. He knows what the wounds and pain look like. And he is not afraid to face it. He knows what it is like to feel hopeless and he nows the fear of having to deal with it again, but he holds the key. He stands beside me, he hold my hand. He says, "Come on, lets face it together. I'm here with you. I came to do this with you." Healing is coming.

And so as I've thought about this season, whatever it is really about, whatever the cause, the undenyable thing about it is that it is a time of celebration. Over this past semester, I have been really thinking about how much I want to be a person who leads a life of celebration. No matter the circumstance, my surroundings, want to be someone who lives a celebratory life. And by no means should that be any less poignant in these next few days. Even amid the pain and frustration, the stuff that is hard to deal with, I want to enjoy the signs of life, the small hints of healing that are yet to come. Celebration. Rejoicing that we have not been left alone to face this daunting challenges in life. Thankfullness for my family that teaches me a little more about seeing with God's eyes.

I hope you all have a beautiful Christmas, full of enjoyment of all the ways God show's his goodness and grace in his world, and enjoyment of the people he has placed around you, no matter who they are.