Christmas 2023 Ep. 4 — “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”
It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
Until it isn’t….
Recently, I was talking to someone and they said, “I always thought Christmas was my favorite time of year, but it really isn’t.” The Christmas season is wonderful, until it’s not.
Until it reminds you that you’re finances are already strained.
Until it jabs at and intensifies the loneliness in your heart.
Until it reminds you that you’re single and there’s no one to be under the mistletoe with.
Until it reminds you that your nest is empty or someone you used to celebrate with is no longer there. Christmas has a way of pointing out the empty chairs and the empty places in our hearts and homes.
Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year until the nostalgia and traditions of bygone eras highlight the pain of your life.
If you have a healthy, nuclear family with kids at home, the ideals painted by Christmas songs are truer than true….
…painted candy canes on the trees …..
….silver bells in the city….
…deck the halls with boughs of holly…
…..tis the season to be jolly…
…..a pair of hop along boots, and a pistol that shoots, is the hope Barney & Ben…
…over the river and through the woods…
But for many others who…are divorced …grieving …single…widowed … incarcerated ….or facing challenges of myriad types, the holiday season amplifies the pressure and pain of the other eleven months.
For myself personally, I feel this is because Christmas songs, and not Christmas carols, have set the “standard” of Christmas. Jingle Bells and “dashing though the snow...” somehow wrote an unattainable script, instead of “Joy To The World” and “our LORD is come,” with all the truth of those few simple lines.
No matter what the sugar-coated, Americanized version of Christmas tells me I don’t have, the truth of the Christmas story overrides and trumps. The truth is that no matter where life finds me, it is the most wonderful time of the year if I’m truly celebrating and magnifying the One Who was promised to be “Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)
When I step back from the tinsel and sleigh rides and refocus my gaze on a crude manger in a Bethlehem stable, I’m brought to wonder and amazement. When I stop listening for silver bells and jingle bells, I can hear the sound of an angel voice whose proclamation split the heavens unexpectedly one night, two thousand years ago. The words spoken still inject hope into any reality: “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. for unto you its born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the LORD. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” When these words are in forefront of my mind, I can recall that God came to “save His people from their sins,” and though I little deserve a Savior, He has saved me. The beauty of the simple gospel stuns me, when I choose to recall this reality of the Christmas story.
Not only did the angel declare a Savior, but He was joined by the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
So even if “troubles are not out of sight,” and there’s not a “tree in the Grand Hotel,” it is still the “most wonderful time of the year.” Emmanuel still came to be “God with us.” There was still a “night divine, oh, night when Christ was born.” The angels still brought good tidings of great joy, which are still for all people. Joy that transcends circumstance. Joy that strengthens in adversity and hardship. Joy because God came down to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Truly, no matter where life finds us, and no matter what the soundtrack of sorrow may be playing, it is the most wonderful time of the year.
“…with the kids jingle-belling, and everyone telling you “be of good cheer,”
and because the angels sang, JOY to the WORLD….
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!”
Thank you for joining me for this journey!
Go grab your Bible and your journal!
I look forward to the power of this habit in your life. This is Unedited.