God with Us

I have a friend who wrote about a month ago: Christmas cannot be canceled because Christmas is God with Us in every circumstance, even a global pandemic. With that simple statement, he cut through all the consumerism and materialism of the weeks leading up to Christmas and focused my heart and attention directly on why it is that we celebrate the birth of Jesus.

This is a strange year to celebrate Christmas. I’ve heard many people express something along these lines: “This is not the Christmas we had hoped for” or “This is not the Christmas we had planned.” These words are often accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders, an expression of “whatchya gonna do?” and a resignation to make the most of what has been for some time now a very difficult year.

It’s certainly not the Christmas most of us had envisioned at the start of 2020, but perhaps it’s the Christmas that will help us see anew the wonder of God with Us. For Elizabeth and me, Christmas has been a difficult season for a number of years now. It was just before Christmas about a dozen years ago that Elizabeth’s grandmother died. That was the Christmas service where I led the liturgy, preached, directed the choir and played trumpet in the brass ensemble (we decided later that was just a slight bit of over-functioning…) And it was about ten years ago on Christmas Eve that we suffered a miscarriage and spent pretty much the whole night in the hospital. Remember these losses each year as everything around us tells us that we’re supposed to be joyful and merry is particularly challenging, and I know others have similar experiences around Christmas each year.

That year we spent Christmas Eve in the hospital, I still came home, showered, and preached the next morning. I preached because the sermon was already ready to go and I felt a need to fulfill people’s expectations for a Christmas service—but that was a mistake. I was not emotionally fit to lead worship at that point. Frankly I was a mess. It was all a bit of a blur. But one thing I remember saying that morning was that in some ways, this is what Christmas is all about—God. Becoming Human. Not ignoring our suffering but entering into it. Carrying our sorrow. Redeeming our broken and hurting world.

This Christmas in the midst of a pandemic is not the Christmas we had expected or hoped for. But it’s still Christmas. Maybe it is especially Christmas. It is still God with Us.