The Weary who Rejoices

Thanksgiving... Christmas... New Years...

    The next two months will be full of celebration. We may sit at big tables filled with family members eating delicious food. We may tell each other what we are grateful for or do Thanksgiving crafts. We may fill the stores to shop for the perfect gifts for our loved ones. We might sing Christmas carols while decorating the tree and the house. We might watch all the classic Christmas movies. We may attend church services hearing of the birth of Jesus. We might do Christmas crafts. We might open presents and stockings on Christmas morning. We might count down to the New Year. We might make new goals and have visions for what the next year might look like. As a kid, it seemed like the most magical time of the year. 

    This perfect image of what the holidays should be like is often not the reality. The holidays have not been the same for me since I turned 16. There has been so much loss since that time. Now, every year, I feel this obligation not to ruin the holidays. My grief over the loss in my life seems so big, and the last thing I want to do is ruin the holidays for my family. I think there is still beauty in the holiday season, but there is also a lot of pain. I don't want the pain to interfere with the fun my family is having. 

    I have spent years putting this pressure on myself to not ruin the holidays. I always get through, but I feel that no one in my family really knows the grief I go through every year. I put on a smiley face to get through when I miss some people I have lost. Over the past couple years, many of those childhood traditions have stopped as I have had to navigate through the loss. The holidays are not like they were before. The holidays now have grief, memories, and hard feelings involved. 

    Something that has remained the same with the holidays is my relationship with the Lord. I can still imagine the night Jesus was born just as I did when I was younger. I even look at the picture of me as a little Mary in my church's Christmas program. I remember feeling so mature when I got to play Mary in my church's play. I loved that role so much, and that memory always makes me smile. Jesus is the ultimate reason for the season. We live in a world that is highly commercialized, so gifts seem to be a big part of the holidays. Jesus was God's gift to the world, and that is better than any gift we can get. 

    This year, I have realized something new about when Jesus came into the world. Jesus came during a time when there was a lot of grief and darkness. Jesus came after 400 years of silence in the Bible where there was no one hearing from God. The people of God were navigating these prophecies of the coming Messiah, and so much can happen in 400 years without hearing the voice of God. When Jesus was born, Herod gave orders to have all the boys under two in Bethlehem and its vicinity be killed. 

"Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled

    A voice is heard in Ramah

    Weeping and great mourning 

    Rachel weeping for her children 

    And refusing to be comforted

    Because they are no more"

Matthew 2:17-18 NIV

    Jesus came not into a world that was celebrating, but a world deep in grief and pain. Jesus came into a world that was dealing with the heaviness of sin. He came during the reign of a king who was deeply prideful and sinned against many families killing their beautiful children. The grief of living in a world like this did not stop Jesus from coming. If you are grieving, that grief will not stop you from being able to celebrate the birth of Jesus. We can still celebrate when grieving. 

    In the song O Holy Night, the lyrics "a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices" get me thinking of what it was like during the time of Jesus. The world was weary waiting for a Messiah. Much can happen in 400 years when God seems silent in a world so broken by sin. The world Jesus entered into wasn't a world that was in a place of celebration as we celebrate Christmas today, but God was ready for that too. 

    God was ready to deal with the world in the weary place it was in. The star appeared in the night sky bringing light to the dark world. Angels appeared to the shepherds and brought forth the good news to them. The Magi did see the star in the night sky coming to worship the king of the Jews. The world needed a redeemer and he came. The birth of Jesus really shows God's humility. He came knowing the world was broken; he came knowing there would be a celebration but also grief. The Shepherds and the Magi came to see Jesus to worship and celebrate him. 

    No matter what you are going through this season, it is important to realize that God loves you through the grief you may be feeling. You will not ruin what God did because you are grieving a loss through this holiday season. Grief only makes the Gospel of Jesus stronger because we can realize through our loss that Jesus is our greatest comforter. The loss and darkness of this world is not the end. Jesus coming into the World just shows that God is a redeemer. Grief was present in the world when Jesus was born and when he died, but Jesus was resurrected. 

    God does not expect you to hold it all together this holiday season, but he wants the weary to come to him to be comforted. What is beautiful about God is that he is gentle and will be there through your pain. We can be the weary who do rejoice in the coming of our King because he came for us and he loved us in the midst of all that we will ever go through. We can be weary and we can rejoice because God is our King and we are his children. Jesus came down to earth to restore the relationship with God so we can live eternally with him in heaven where there is no pain, only worship.