From Cradle to Grave
I admit sometimes, during this Christmas season, I can be a Grinch.
It’s not that I don’t like Christmas. I do. But sometimes I just get overwhelmed with the sheer busyness of it all. The shopping, the get-togethers, the school performances, not to mention the church events and community outreach activities. They are all worthy things, things I want to do (well, maybe not so much ALL of the holiday get-togethers), but as the calendar fills up and the bank account dwindles, I start to feel a little…empty. A little hard-hearted.
A little…Grinch-ish.
I can do my Advent reading, go to church, sing all the wonderful holiday hymns, and somehow still feel nothing. It’s the season of Emmanuel, God With Us, and yet it can sometimes seem as if God has never been further away.
And I was in one of those particularly melancholy moods the other day when God decided to stop me right in my tracks and prove to me just how very wrong I was.
I was at home, wrapping presents, feeling stressed about getting it done and getting these packages to the post office before the looming holiday deadline, in addition to needing to bake cookies for my daughter’s upcoming Christmas party. I wasn’t feeling particularly festive and no where near in the holiday spirit so I put on some Christmas music to try and shake me out of my funk.
The song “A Hallelujah Christmas” by Cloverton came on, which I’d heard a hundred times before and always enjoyed. It’s a remake of the old Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah,” keeping the melody but replacing the words to celebrate Jesus’s birth. You can listen to it here if you’ve never heard it (which I highly encourage–it’s wonderful!)
Anyway, I’m singing along absentmindedly, not really letting the words sink in. Until, that is, the final verse started.
And my spirit absolutely stilled.
The lyrics go as follows:
“I know you came to rescue me.
This baby boy would grow to be
a man who would one day die for me and you.
My sins would drive the nails in you.
That rugged cross was my cross, too.
Still every breath you drew was hallelujah…”
You know how, in How The Grinch Stole Christmas, the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes in one day? Well, this overburdened mama’s heart grew three sizes in the course of one verse. For no reason–and every reason–I fell to my knees and broke into tears. Desperate, uncontrollable sobs.
Because, as wonderful and joyous as it is to think of a precious, cherubic Baby Jesus entering the world this holiday season, it’s important to remember why. It wasn’t so we could put up a tree, sip eggnog, and look at holiday lights. It wasn’t so we could exchange gifts, bake cookies, or compare ugly sweaters.
That precious little baby we celebrate this Christmas season was born to die.
Those tiny hands would one day stretch out on a cross. Those tiny feet would one day be pierced. And that tiny heart would one day cease beating.
For me. And for you.
You cannot separate Christ’s birth from His death, the manager from the cross, Christmas from Easter. The whole point of the first was the latter. The only reason we celebrate one is because of the other.
It’s a sober and sombering thought, especially in a season filled with so much happiness and light. This time of year, we often only want to think of the joy of Jesus’s birth, not the horrific way in which He died (or our own role in making it happen). But the crucifixion is precisely what makes Christmas worth celebrating.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3: 16-17
Our salvation comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a salvation that could not have occurred if He hadn’t come to to earth in the first place.
“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. […] For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.” Isaiah 9:2, 6-7
This is why we celebrate Christmas. It’s not the lights, the presents, the food, or the get-togethers. It’s the gift God gave us in Jesus Christ, God Made Flesh, come as a baby to live–and die–for the creation He loved. We can celebrate His birth, even knowing its painful end, because of the greater purpose for which it occurred: you and me, cleansed of our sins, one day living in eternity with God.
And, sometimes, that truth is the only thing that can break through this cold, Grinch-y heart of mine.
Will you accept His gift this Christmas season?
