The Meaning of Christmas to Me

The meaning of Christmas used to be simple. Simple and profound.
The Love of the universe poured out on a needy world in the form of
a newborn Baby. Wonder shining in the eyes of a child on Christmas
morning. Newness of gentle snow falling on a quiet night.

But tonight, the joy and the pain of last year, indeed the
last decade, crash together in my mind. Nothing is simple
anymore. For the world has grown old and very, very sad.

This Christmas I share the grief of those who dread
the first Christmas since their loved one died.

I hear the incongruency of “peace on earth”
in families that are broken in pieces.

I sit in family togetherness at a bountiful table
aware that thousands will die today of hunger.

I drink in the joy in the eyes of our little ones, hoping to
shut out the painfilled eyes of TV newscast children.

This Christmas the baby I see is Natosha, a beautiful five
month old victim of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
She is held by her sobbing young parents in the chapel at
the hospital, while I, the chaplain, read scripture and
pray, giving her to God

This Christmas the stable is made up of shacks on the other side
of our lives where the homeless seek shelter from the cold.

The Angels’ Song seems far away. For the world has
grown old and very, very sad.

I give and my giving doesn’t stop the pain.
I love and my love is like tears falling in the
of a vast world’s need.
I’m overwhelmed. Needy myself.

Wearily, I go again to Bethlehem.

I see the starkness of the stable. The pain of delivery.
The young couple alone with the struggle. The newborn Son
shivering in the cold of a Judean night and the cold of an
unwaiting, unwelcoming world. He is named Emannuel,
GOD WITH US.

I watch the God of the universe enter the tangle of humanity without
pretense or protocol, almost without notice. A tiny baby, dependent for life
on a young Jewish woman. He enters the world through pain.
I know He will die in thirty-three years having experienced
all of the pain there is, the deepest depths of human grief,
“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”

GOD WITH US.

I kneel in wonder. The Love of the universe poured out on a needy
world in the form of a newborn Baby!! In Him is Life and the Life is the
Light of men and women for all time. Look! “The Light shines on in
the dark, and the darkness has never mastered it.”
(John 1:4,5)

Through my tears I touch the edge of the meaning of Christmas:

That pain and joy often grow together.

That God’s power comes not through
strength but through weakness.

That true greatness is releasing
rights not achieving them.

That GOD WITH US is for today—comfort,
and grace and courage, healing for
brokenness, peace for pieces,
soul hunger filled.

That GOD IN US is Life and Light and Love.

That a world so loved is not abandoned
when it is old and sad, but will be changed
“when God makes all things new.” (Rev. 21)

The meaning of Christmas, simple, profound:
Love, Wonder, Newness.

By Linda Lane Gage