A Different Sort of Christmas

It's no secret, really, that 2017 has been a particularly hard year for me. From start to finish, this year has brought with it many losses and a great deal of pain--not least of which has included walking with my community at House Blend through the decision to sell the house and then to close the ministry, as well as personally navigating the loss of my calling to pastor this particular community.

I find myself carrying the grief of these losses into this Advent season with me, and as the celebration of Christ's incarnation among us draws closer and closer, I find myself acutely aware of the grief that sits alongside the celebration this year--the grief that, even as we remember and proclaim the Good News that the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, this community that incarnated God's love for me so well for the past several years is conspicuously absent this year.

Journeying with this community over the past few years has also given me the gift of new perspective that has invited me to check my privilege and to remember that Christmas is not a season of joyful celebration for everyone. For those who have lost jobs, for those whose families are a source of pain more than delight, for those who are lonely or who walk with the struggle of seasonal depression or who are struggling to overcome addictions, along with so many others, the merriment of Christmas  can, and so often does, serve to increase the sense of isolation and pain that they walk with daily.


I find myself longing for a Christmas story that is big enough to be good news for this season of my life, and for the friends I know for whom Christmas is an annual and unwelcome struggle. I'm longing for a Christmas story that will be good news not only for the mostly-comfortable, but for the aches and pains of a world that knows that deep down things are not right and need radical change.  For a Christmas story that won't just affirm the status quo and support the present order, but that will shake the foundations and stir our desire for a new kind of Kingdom to emerge.


This year, I resonate with Mary's song: "He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands."

Zechariah's prophecy, too, stirs a longing for change: "Because of God's tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace."

This year, as we remember the birth of a baby long ago, may we hear the echoes of the voices of the prophets who foretold his coming to a nation longing for change. May we have eyes to see beyond the peaceful image of a baby cradled asleep in his mother's arms to the miracle of God with us, the Word made flesh, come to dwell among us.

This story is big enough to be good news for all of us. Big enough for the hungry, for those who sit in darkness, for those who long for peace. May we give it the space to be so, today and every day!

Merry Christmas, friends!