Holidays are weird.
Maybe I’m the only one that thinks this, maybe not. But it’s a weird time of the year. It’s a time where we, as the poet Dylan Thomas famously wrote; “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
What I mean is that culturally, this is the time of year when we corporately fight against the nihilism of the day. We push back against the vitriol and hopelessness that permeates every moment of our days at all angles. We either push down our life struggles or they rise with force to the surface. Our thoughts go towards loved ones who aren’t with us during this time of togetherness and celebration. Again, we push these thoughts down or they send us into an array of emotions from depression and anger to withdrawal. There is this tension between holiday cheer and the reality of where we are in our various stations of life. We may be hopeless and our lives meaningless, but we still reach for hope and purpose. Especially during the holidays.
There’s also a contrast in our wants and longings for a God who came to be with us. George Macdonald wrote; “Because we easily imagine ourselves in want, we imagine God ready to forsake us.” I believe this tells us how we feel about God, deep down. When we look at the world, it’s easy to assume a ‘god-forsakenness’ to our existence. We see a world that suffers and more intimately, we see loved ones suffer and experience suffering ourselves. There is legitimate brokenness. From sickness to violence and everything in between; there is this overwhelming sense that fighting for holiday cheer and joy is futile and pointless and the nothingness of nihilism is true.
But then there’s this realization…as the prophet Isaiah wrote…” Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.”
The Lord himself…will complete his end of the covenant in Genesis 15. He will give us a sign. The baby born will be called Immanuel, “God with us”. The preposition here is ‘with’. Prepositions are a noun’s direction in relation to something else. Now, as a prepositional description, ‘with’ is a very comforting note to make about God. It isn’t ‘God (beside, above, under, over, outside, from, to, etc…) us.’ It is God WITH us. It is relational and hopeful.
During this time of year, we are relational and hopeful. We desire to be ‘with’ others. Listen though, God desires to be ‘with’ us. The birth of Jesus is a grand gesture of him showing the amazing lengths he will go to redeem and restore us to being with him. The birth of Jesus, as a weary world spins, is worth rejoicing over. It distinctly brings comfort and purpose to a life that would seemingly be everything but. He is with us. A church father once said: “You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains? The artist does not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material. Even so was it with the All-holy Son of God? He, the Image of the Father, came and dwelt in our midst in order that He might renew mankind made after Himself."
In the middle of our wants, we feel forsaken. The truth, however, is that we are anything but. Because God chose to be with us. In the face of the nothingness that would tell us the truth of our existence, the light of the world decides to step down and shine so bright as to redirect our very existence. In the middle of our own personal suffering, God is with us. Even if we don’t feel his presence, even if we don’t believe. He is with us. Always. Even until the very end. There’s always hope because he is with us.

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