"They said there'll be snow at Christmas
They said there'll be peace on Earth
But instead it just kept on raining
Veiled tears for the Virgin birth
I remember one Christmas morning
A winters light and a distant choir
And the peal of a bell and that Christmas Tree smell
And eyes full of tinsel and fire
They sold me a dream of Christmas
They sold me a Silent Night
And they told me a fairy story
'Till I believed in the Israelite
And I believed in Father Christmas
And I looked to the sky with excited eyes
'Till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn
And I saw him and through his disguise
I wish you a hopeful Christmas
I wish you a brave New Year
All anguish, pain, and sadness
Leave your heart and let your road be clear
They said there'll be snow at Christmas
They said there'll be peace on Earth
Hallelujah, Noel, be it Heaven or Hell
The Christmas we get we deserve. - Greg Lake"
Wow.
All I can think is "What is the Christmas gift that would have satisfied the songwriter?" Perhaps a world at peace and the end of a bloody war. Perhaps a halt to the commercial trappings of a holiday that everyone says will renew us and often disappoints. But I know in my heart that he could not have been satisfied for long.
Wars will always restart because our pride is always wounded one way or another- local, national, and international politics will never be devoid of conflict because all humans desire to be powerful and prosperous. Materialism will never leave us because it is a function of our hearts' need to be distracted by the tangible to avoid the uncertainty of the intangible.
My heart breaks to think of the lies our culture believes about gifts. We refuse to accept the one gift that God gave us at Christmas and then we are angry at God because the material/social gifts we did receive are not filling the emptiness in our hearts. There is war and hatred and violence seeping into every crack in the world around us. We are afraid and angry. And the holiday season, while many ads claim it will heal us, often leaves us profoundly hopeless. But we long for the gifts Jesus offers without even realizing it.
We long for freely given love and acceptance. Jesus gives that. We long for peace in our hearts and in our communities. Jesus brings that. We long for a family where we belong. Jesus brings us into the family of God.
But the reason we will not come to Him is because our nature resists free offerings. We do not understand the concept of getting good things we have not earned (gifts); we think karma is the operating force. "Give good, get good. Give bad, get bad." But that isn't "giving" at all. God's idea of reaching out to us in all of emptiness and filling us with love and joy just because He wants to is foreign to us. It is foreign to the person who does not believe in God, to the person who is not interested in God, and to the Christian. It is a HUMAN resistance to the gracious giving of anything we have not worked for.
My nature says "God, help me to earn your gifts. I'll work harder and be better if it means you will give me what I long for. God, I'll become the perfect candidate so you can choose me." When I see how badly I fail at working harder and being better, my nature says "God, please don't take your gifts away from me. Please don't take my husband even though I was such an unworthy wife today. Please don't take my job because I was such an unworthy worker today. Please don't take my health because I failed to steward my time and abilities well. I didn't earn it right but please, God, I know you're disappointed but I couldn't bear to lose your goodness."
I am a professional at making simple things complicated. Just ask my mom or any of my former teachers or my husband. I get an A for overthinking every time. But the thing is, when you make gifts complicated, they aren't gifts anymore. They are transactions. "I'll do this so you'll do that. If you don't do this, I won't do that."
At Christmas, we don't get what we deserve. We get gifts that are born out of THEIR love and not OUR merit, out of THEIR gracious and generous hearts and not OUR "good grades". In our daily lives, if we got what we deserve all the time, we would be in serious trouble. In many ways I have not earned the devotion of my husband but he gives it. In many ways I have not earned the blessing of my work and my good health (there are countless others more qualified and more genuinely good than I am) but God gives it. In all of my cursing, God has not stolen my voice though I deserve it. In all of my stubborn worrying and bitterness, God has not taken my mental faculties though I deserve that too. In all of my innate sinfulness, God has not given me Hell though I deserve it.
The birth of Christ - the entire Christmas story- is proof of this. Jesus was given to us as a priceless gift we had never earned..And He came because we could never earn the love and forgiveness and peace and joy we all long for. He knew that He could earn through his perfection what we could never ever earn in our brokenness and sin. So He took immense suffering so I wouldn't have to. So his perfect words and perfect obedient mind are what God sees now when He looks at ME. That is utterly mind-blowing.
In this season, I think we probably need to evaluate what exactly we assume we are entitled to. Let's look around and honestly admit in our hearts how we think God and others have held out on us.
"I'm lonely and my friends are never there for me. I deserve good friends.
I'm tired and I never get enough rest. I deserve a break.
My job is frustrating and isn't worth the aggravation. I deserve my superior's job and pay rate because I work harder.
My spouse doesn't meet my needs and barely ever has any time to spend with me. I deserve all of his/her attention. I deserve to have someone who builds his/her life around mine.
My family members and friends are having children and they got married way after I did. Instead of a child, I got cysts for Christmas. I deserve to be a mom too, don't I?
These women are all beautiful and put together and I feel ugly and scatterbrained and inadequate. I deserve to be the person I dreamed of being, don't I?"
Maybe you feel some of those things. I know I have some days - lots of days. But here is the truth:
I don't deserve a single thing.
Not one bit of anything I have in my life at this moment.
God has given me gift after gift after gift that I never worked one minute to obtain.
My mind returns to the song "They sold me a dream". Yes, perhaps they did. Perhaps you were sold a consumer-targeted, profit-driven, emotionalized, memorialized sham of a Christmas. Perhaps you were sold a Jesus that is all smiles and love and kindness with no justice and anger and scars. Perhaps you were sold a celebration of wealth and close family memories and picture perfect poses amid holiday lights. I'm sorry it was sold to you and I am sorry that you were tricked into buying it.
But that isn't the Christmas that God offers. That isn't the kind of gift the "Israelite" came to hand out freely. Because His gift is so much more.
The gift of Jesus is God becoming man, forgiving sins, bleeding to death on a Roman cross, and coming back to life so He could bring you to Heaven with him. The gift of Jesus is a legal pardon for everything you have ever done wrong, a pardon bought with the blood of the Creator himself. The gift of Jesus has nothing to do with you becoming a good person and everything to do with Jesus being a PERFECT person that makes you PERFECT in the sight of Heaven itself. You aren't good or perfect, but He proclaims that because He bought you with His own blood, you are.
No matter what you have heard, Jesus did not come to give us health and wealth and happiness - He came to give us himself. No strings attached.
No matter how much good we do, He will offer us himself - all of his love and grace and power.
No matter how much bad we do, He will offer us himself - all of his love and grace and power.
It's been nearly 15 years since I received the gift of Jesus, and He is still the only real gift I have. Every blessing in my life has come through knowing him, every talent and skill I have comes from him, every bit of growth I have experienced is because of him. But in every change, I have never received anything more or less than HIMSELF. His presence. His companionship. His comfort.
If every single tangible good in my life were to disappear tomorrow morning, God's gift would not be changed. Jesus is the gift and he will never be taken from me. If every single tangible thing in my life were to get bigger and grander and more enjoyable tomorrow morning, God's gift would not be changed. Jesus is the gift and no other gift could ever compare.
This Christmas, I pray that we focus on each new moment as a gift. That we put aside our arbitrary expectations and experience the joy of here and now. That we stop trying to earn favor with God or trying to appease Him with frantic pleading. That we learn that true gifts- no matter their incredible cost to the giver- are FREE for the receiver. That we reach out to receive and constantly cherish the gift of the baby born in Bethlehem, the Messiah and King of Kings...The one gift that never stops giving.
"His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again. - Annie Flint"
