life in the both/and.

Christmas is a pretty loaded topic this year. So many people have survived 2020, only to make it to Christmas and not have money for gifts. COVID cases have spiked around the country once again. People have lost family members, only been able to say goodbye through FaceTime, and not been able to attend their loved ones funeral.

So if you’re having a hard time being happy this Christmas, that’s okay. You know as well as I do that there’s beauty in this world, in the sunsets and sunrises, in the way babies laugh, in so many things. However, truly feeling that joy in your bones when you are overcome with grief is not easy.

I’m not asking you for fake happy this holiday. I’m asking for truth. Jesus is truth incarnate. He is love and joy and peace that passes understanding. He always has been and always will be those things. The thing about modern Christmas is we are obsessed with joy (and buying other people’s love, but that’s a different topic). Truthfully, the concept of that is beautiful. I love that you want to grab joy with both hands and hold onto it for dear life. The other side of that coin is we ignore a full spectrum of emotions that Jesus never did, because He created those too.

When Immanuel became flesh among us, his mother had just gone through pregnancy out of wedlock. Her fiancé, Joseph, wasn’t the father. He had been on the verge of quietly terminating the relationship when he found out, until an angel appeared to him. Can you imagine being so young and so, so pregnant? Can you imagine the whispers of everyone around her, the gossip of the town? I know some people in my life don’t have to imagine, and for that I am so sorry. I’m sorry that you experienced it, and that I have been a whisperer as well.

This was Mary’s reality. Pregnant, trusting God, but tired. Enduring the whispers, growing bigger and more uncomfortable every day, and finally, the census comes. The journey from Galilee to Bethlehem on donkey over the desert sand probably was not the most comfortable. Finally, when they arrived, every single comfortable room was full. Can you imagine how Mary looked at Joseph when everywhere they went was full? Even the nicest woman loses a bit of patience at the final hour of her pregnancy, especially after she’s sojourned through the desert.

In this, the final hour, the joy of the world is born. I can only imagine Mary’s emotions as she held Immanuel. I’m sure she felt that every moment of pain and shame she endured fell away as she looked at his little face. Fell away doesn’t mean disappeared. Whispers linger. But Immanuel heals our wounds, binds us up and carries us when we are too weak to move ourselves.

Even after the birth of our Redeemer, Mary and Joseph had to flee in the dead of night to escape Herod. He was so afraid of the King, as told to him by the Magi, that he murdered all little boys under age 2.

The Christmas story as we usually tell it is very polite. It involves a man and a woman, and shepherds and wise men with expensive gifts. The actual story is bloody and painful and well, real. It produced the Saviour of the world… but the journey to His birth, and the story of His life until the cross was not easy. It was real. Jesus wept in the garden of Gethsemane. He let His grief be real then and for Lazarus. He was real.

The journey to joy is only ever achieved through true dependence in God. It is not achieved through fake positivity, or ignoring emotions, or sacrificing truth. Joy - real, Christlike joy - is found in Christ alone. My hope is built on nothing else. So if Christmas has unfolded nothing but anxiety and overwhelming grief for you, I am so sorry. I know this year was real, and it was grueling, and it was tough. I know there were beautiful things that happened too - sunrises and sunsets, adoptions, miraculous pregnancies, and so much more. There is room for all of that to exist. Life is always both/and - I am grieving and I can see beauty in this life. I am broken, discouraged and undone, but I believe this isn’t forever. I am completely spent, and I don’t know where hope could be coming from, but I know it can come. The real Christmas story is grief and joy. It is pain and beauty. It is childbirth and the genocide of Jewish babies. You can love Jesus, and cherish Christmas, and be real. That’s all I want for you.