Christmas is For the Weary
This season is one of frenzy...bright lights, loud music, fast pace, full days. Christmas parties and Christmas lists, Christmas shopping and Christmas baking and Christmas planning...the countdown to December 25 is exhilarating for some and nerve wracking for others.
And for many, this season carries a particular heaviness.
Loss has a way of weaving sorrow through even the sweetest of moments. I think of my sweet Calla all day long. I think about how she loves this time of year, what kinds of things she would put on her wish list, what programs or plays we would watch her in, what daily moments she would fill with her spunk and fire. I think about what it would feel like to cuddle her close and watch Christmas movies, what sweet notes she would write to her Elf on the Shelf, what handmade gifts she would create for her family, what Christmas songs she would teach to her baby sister and what jokes she would make with her big brother.
I mourn...and I love.
And oh...God knows I am weary.
Weary. Weary. Weary.
But Christmas is for the weary.
Christmas shouts out, “Your God keeps His promises!” “Your God sees you and has come to save you!” “Your God will not leave you, forsake you, desert you or forget you.” “Your God came to save you from your sin and is coming again to bring you Home!”
Christmas tells the story of how God fulfills His Word...how the smallest of details from hundreds of prophecies hundreds of years before are not left out. God saw and told the story of Jesus’ birth to people who lived centuries before...and from lineage to hometown to wardrobe, every word was true. It happened just as He said it did...just as He said it would.
Christmas is proof that one moment can change everything...that God is not done yet...that He will do everything He has EVER said He will do. How at just the right time, and in just the right way, His glory comes barreling into our brokenness, turning darkness to light and mourning to joy and sorrow to hope.
Christmas reminds us that God can be trusted. Hebrews 10:23 says, “Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep His promise.” Another translation says “He who promised is faithful.” And of all the promises that we can cling to, Christ’s return is the most precious to me. “Yes, I am coming soon,” (Rev 22:20) my King assures me and my weary heart cries back, “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!”
Yes, Christmas is for the weary. Christmas is for those who know that there is no rest, no satisfaction, no peace and no hope apart from the Savior who humbly came as a baby, lived a perfect life of love, endured a cruel and undeserved death, rose victorious from the grave and is returning to set up His eternal kingdom on a restored earth and heaven. “A weary world only rejoices when it knows how weary it is and sees in the distance a guaranteed remedy for its grief.” (Nic Allen)
So, as I focus on the miracle of Jesus’ first coming to this world as a tiny, helpless baby, I will let my faith rise and my heart long and my eyes look and my weary soul rejoice that His second coming is indeed coming...for He can be trusted to keep His promise.
