The Paradox of Christmas

Christmas is a paradox. I have not really thought about it much until this year. This year, the pain of the season has come with a vengeance, and more because of external pain rather than person pain. Friends have lots babies. Friends have lost parents and grandparents. Loved ones have loved ones who are gravely ill. Pets are lost and dying. I have felt bodily pain from ongoing health issues and a few procedures. Isn't this supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year? Because this year, it certainly isn't.

Christmas brings up many feelings. For those with intact families, it brings up special memories and the chance to relive them. For those separated from their families by death or by choices (either theirs, or those of their family), it brings up pain. For families with good boundaries and the ability to enforce them, it brings closeness and warmth. For others, the stress of the season leads to more arguing and bickering and fighting. Or maybe the season brings such a mixture of feelings that it is difficult to delineate between them. Some would rather skip over the season than feel such overwhelm.

As I ponder what Christmas means, though, I think about Jesus. Born as a baby, but still perfectly God, he had to know that he would one day die. How did that affect him? What about Mary? She knew that her baby was God. Simeon prophesied to her, "'And a sword will pierce your own soul too'" (Luke 2:35, NIV). Did she know what that meant? She gave birth to Jesus in pain. Then she lived through the pain of watching him grow up and be crucified. How did she manage?

What about the people of Bethlehem and its vicinity? They lost all their sons two years and younger because of Herod's fear of Jesus becoming greater than him, and subsequent wrath (Matthew 2:16). That had to be exceedingly painful!

Christmas is a paradox, in so many ways. Some years just bring that to light more than others. The paradox of Christmas is eternal, though. Christ come to earth as a baby to die for our sins. Hope, and a reminder that we are hopeless on our own. Life and a reminder that all of us are doomed for death. We cannot have the one without the other. As I, and many others, struggle with pain this Christmas, may we remember Jesus' pain, and that because of Jesus' pain, sorrow does not last forever. Sorrow "may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning" (Ps 30:5, KJV). Either in the morning of a future day or future time, or in the forever morning of living with Jesus in heaven forever.

Merry Christmas to all, in whatever season you may be. Know you are loved, by us, and by the eternal God!