broken christmas..

Ugh, Christmas is hard. Anyone telling you different is selling you something, or they aren’t  paying attention.

The warm glow, the time with families, the revelry, the foooood, the presents, the trees and trimmings, wassailing. Bing Crosby crooning, “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…”. Or maybe your groove is more Boney. M. The snow is gently falling, it’s cold enough for a fire in the fireplace but not so cold you bitterly complain about it. As you walk down your street every house is lit and twinkling and the warmth seems to pour out of every window as there is a party or family gathered at every house. The city sounds are quieted by the snow and all is calm, all is bright. 

Is any of it even real?

I have battled Christmas this year. Much like Jacob and the Angel of the Lord in the desert. I was walking towards Christmas with hope and anticipation.

“This year will be wonderful” I thought to myself. “This will be our fourth Christmas here and it will finally not be painful. Finally I won’t be homesick, and finally I won’t cry over not being able to bake with my sisters and finally I won’t get depressed after our FaceTime call with our families on that day because this is the first time since we moved here that I am actually looking forward to Christmas”

I started to plan and organize and schedule. I made lists and lists and lists for my lists. Not really. The Christmas music kicked in and the recipes came out and the online shopping carts filled up.

Then I got sick.

Again.

Strep throat.

Again. 

Only this time I couldn’t get antibiotics in time so I was on  my own in my fight against it. Let me tell you, strep without antibiotics is exhausting. A whole day in bed, a week of sore throat, two and a half weeks of exhaustion. I was going to bed at 8:30 most nights, barely even making it to that time. I lost thirteen pounds and just walking up the stairs wore me out. Just as I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to have energy again, things slowly started to turn around. But now Christmas no longer seemed inviting, it was looming like a threat to every part of me. And within that recovery from strep was a stressed family. A husband taking on more even though his plate was already spilling everywhere. Stumbling into a pit of despair over financials, children checking in on me every morning and throughout the day, “Are you ok mom? How are you feeling today mom? Are you still sick mom?” Just this morning, Iain asked me if I was all better, “How much better are you mom?” I had to assure him I was 100%. But it was no small task to get there.

I have “joked” with a few people that I had my ass handed to me over the weeks of November. I’m sure someone else could go through those same things and truck along just fine. Me? Well, I feel everything. Everything. Even everything everyone else is feeling. I felt the weight of Brad’s stress with having to do more around the house while I was recovering, I felt the deep concern my boys had for their mom, I felt the deep wound of guilt as our finances came knocking, reminding us of being good stewards and how, well, we haven’t. That was probably the hardest blow. Right before Christmas. I sat at the computer and looked at those online shopping carts and shook my head, and got angry. The anger went only one place, inward. 

What are we doing? What are we teaching our children? What kind of mixed message are we selling? Jesus wasn’t even born on Christmas day. The church laid a blanket over a pagan holiday in attempt to redeem it. But the church isn’t even perfected in it’s redemption. How did we think it would turn out? 

Noah feels compelled to bring it up to anyone who mentions him that Santa is dead. Don’t be getting any ideas about it to the contrary either. I grew up being told that we celebrate Christmas because it’s Jesus’ birthday and we give gifts because of the wisemen giving gifts to Jesus (even though they came two years later) and because Jesus is the greatest gift of all. But is that still my motivation? Did Jesus come so we could buy more things we don’t need? Why just get those things at Christmas? As a Christian, if you are glad all year long for Christ’s birth - and you should be - why not give gifts all year long? 

The Wisemen’s gifts were actually spirit lead and prophetic. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. Joseph and Mary needed the gold to pay for their travels. Frankincense was used for cleansing. The priests would use it in the Temple for anything and everything. Myrrh, well, let me tell you about Myrrh.

It is used in burial.

I sat stuck on this for the longest time. I wanted to scrap Christmas. Just, let’s forget about getting a tree, we already have a small one the boys use. And I can explain to the boys that we can’t do Santa sacks this year. I’ll tell Brad that he and I can just go on a date and not worry about presents for each other. I mean, it gets ridiculous and out of hand. What are we saying to the world when we hop on the bandwagon of secular culture and fail at every attempt to redeem it?

Is redemption our mandate?

Last Sunday was pretty typical. Slow comers, late start, restless boys - grumpy child - last minute details, power point problems, music challenges, stewing over Christmas problems. It felt like a cyclone of distraction. And in the midst of it walked in a man who, let me say, has burned his bridges at nearly every organization in town. He has certainly made no friends at our church either. He left town a few months back and we thought it was for good. And a part of me was glad. So often he was coming around for soup kitchen or Sundays or any day and was drunk. He would yell and swear at Brad, and the next time he was by he had no memory of his previous visit. A couple at our church tried to help him and he deeply, deeply took advantage of them. We helped pay for his bus ticket out of town after he told us he was going to get clean. When he walked in on Sunday my first thought, after my anxiety seized me, was “man, this guy has balls”

But really,

“man, this guy is broken”

And we can not fix him. That is not our job. Our job is to love him. 

He walked in to the sanctuary in the middle of the sermon and sat down and echoed a few amens, then started mumbling to himself. 

And in that moment Brad’s voice seemed to cut like a sword,

“God is close to the outcast, we see that he is close to those who are on the fringes of society. Back then it was the poor or women or slaves that were on the fringes. And we can think of people nowadays who might be on the fringes of society” 

And I wept.

Because I am broken too

And we fail each other because we don’t want to admit to our own brokenness, only to each others.

Why does this man keep coming back here? He makes us uncomfortable. Holy interruption is such a blazingly, awkward, burning light. What happens when God calls us on our bullshit?

And I prayed. I nearly collapsed to my knees. 

God is so good to me. He is so gracious and tender and loving. As when you were little and ran like the wind and tripped and scraped your knee and your mom would look over your wound and gently press on different areas. This hurts? How about here? And you would wince and cry. Don’t touch it! It hurts!

Of course it does. The body is broken. 

Healing can only come after the hurt.

And the frankincense burns.

And the myrrh soaks the linen.