The calendar is full. Every year December is spelled with endless meetings, school assignments due dates, parties, last minute projects, shopping, and rammed up religious events. All the little squares filled to the brim in fountains of colours denoting some vagueness of sanity, but it is relentless, and truthfully, soul-crushing. What is suppose to be a time of reflection, peace, and joy is often overwhelmed by our culture of consumerism and individualism. How much more opposite could it be that Christmas is supposed to be about the birth of the son of God in a stable? The celebration of the Saviour who gave up his rights and power instead of taking what he is entitled. Instead of seeking wealth and platform, he blessed the poor and healed the sick by the countryside. The calendar is not supposed to be full this season of the year, it is supposed to be filled with Him only. It is supposed to point us to this child named Jesus, not the boxing day deals.
Christmas has lost much of its meaning today in the western world, and it has also lost the hope that it is meant to reflect. Instead of joy in community and family, many are clouded by loneliness. Rather than contentment and abundance, many stands before the new year with an insurmountable debt.
Is this what Christmas is all about year after year?
What if this is your last Christmas on this side of eternity?
Would you buy more things? Would you party harder? Would you want to drown out your deepest need for hope with everything else but hope itself?
For me, December is a memorial of deaths. Death of loved ones and the death of a dream. It pulls in tension between the hope that is Christmas and the experience of pain that I carry in my heart. My soul stretched tightly between the two realities, and it kills me to hang on. I could let go and seek out false gods in vacations, toys, and the mythical Santa Claus, but ignoring the truth and pretend living will only increase the bleeding. I can't live on wishful thinking, nor can I take any things with me when I take my last breath. If this was my last Christmas, I want to experience it in the truth. I want to face Christmas with all my hopes and pain.
If this was my last Christmas, I would delete my calendar, spend every night in tears and hope before my God, and ask Him to show up in my life as he had done so in history. No milk and cookies, just tears of desperation and a prayer.
