Faith

So, how has life changed for you since last Christmas? Like me, are you unsure how Christmas will feel this year?

It’s mid-July. Daytime highs have hit north of 30 C half a dozen times in the past two weeks. Today, smoke from the forest fires raging across northwestern Ontario has turned the sky hazy and the air acrid. The windows of my writing studio are closed. The small fan propped on the ledge blows warm, stale air. I’m here at my desk because I’ve agreed to write a Christmas-themed article, but I’m struggling to find my spark. It’s hard to think about Christmas with sweat trickling down my back.

Thankfully, early on in my writing life, I learned the invaluable truth that thinking follows writing. So, I begin by listing the things we do every year to celebrate Christmas. We put up a tree––a real one if I have my way––and decorate it with ornaments and lights. Presents are bought, wrapped and placed beneath its branches. (The girth of the gift pile has waxed and waned over the years with the arrival and departure of children. Since the advent of grandkids, it has waxed once more.)

Christmas decor emerges from hibernation sometime in late November––if my wife has her way. The stereo is loaded up with Christmas CDs around the same time. (Yes, I know, we are Luddites.) The house becomes warm with the smell of traditional Christmas sweets and savouries. I buy my annual carton of eggnog. Invitations are made and received to visit with family and friends. We walk through the four Sundays of Advent with our spiritual community. I choose an Advent devotional off my bookshelves to feed on through the weeks.

We read and listen to the Christmas stories again. The story of the angel’s visit to Mary, and of Mary’s submission to God’s planned incarnation. The story of Joseph’s dream and his willing participation in the same said plan. Mary’s visit to her expectant cousin, Elizabeth, and of the child in Elizabeth’s womb leaping at the sound of Mary’s greeting. Of the journey to Bethlehem, of the newborn baby being laid in a manger, of shepherds in the fields greeted by a host of angels proclaiming the birth of a Saviour, of star-gazing Magi bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. I’ve known these stories since childhood. My Sunday school mates and I acted them out as house-coated shepherds and bedsheet-ed angels sporting tinselled halos. I’ve heard them preached for 70 years (although the first few I might have slept through). And I’ve preached them for over 40 years (and may have put a few people to sleep myself). I’ve carolled them in churches bathed in candlelight, and on neighbourhood doorsteps on frosty December nights. They are as familiar to me as breath.

These rituals, traditions and stories have helped me celebrate Christmas for longer than I can remember––which, at my stage of life, is more accurate to say than “for as long as I can remember.” And I feel I will need their help again this year.

You see, it’s not just the July heat that is making it difficult to find my Christmas groove. It’s knowing that, this Christmas, our celebrations will be encumbered by a deep sense of loss. There will be an empty chair at the dinner table—one less name tag under the tree.

Someone we loved deeply died a few weeks ago. Christmas is five months away, but my heart hurts, actually hurts, when I try to imagine Christmas without her precious presence. Last Christmas, we knew without a doubt she was sick. We tiptoed around the fear that it might be her last Christmas with us. It turns out it was. And the one who loved her most intimately will be missing her most intensely. That will be a painful thing for the rest of us to witness.

A lot of life happens between one Christmas and the next. Circumstances change, some years more dramatically than others. We experience setbacks and successes, make new friends, lose old ones, suffer disappointments, see dreams come true. People we love get sick … and sometimes die. Everybody’s story changes from one Christmas to the next. At the very least, we all grow a year older.

So, how has life changed for you since last Christmas? Like me, are you unsure how Christmas will feel this year? Maybe you are dreading the thought of it so much that you have already decided to leave the decorations in the basement and ban Christmas music from your playlist. Sometimes life changes cast shadows so large we cannot see beyond their darkness; in which case, we need to remind ourselves that while our stories change from one Christmas to the next, the Story does not.

Two thousand years ago, God stepped into His creation. The eternal Son of God became the Son of Man––Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. The incarnation is the only true Christmas miracle story. And that unchanging story is our rock in times of trouble.

A wise friend of mine said recently:

Our lives are shaped by what we allow to shape them … when fear becomes the only reality, when shame becomes the only story in our hearts, when despair is all we can see, when scarcity determines all of our actions and how we live, [then] eventually our world begins to shrink, eventually it seems that even hope has disappeared, joy is nowhere to be found, our ability to wonder diminishes into nothing, not because they no longer exist, but because we lose the ability to see them. We only notice what we focus on … our shame, grief, anxiety, fear are all real, but they are not the only thing that is real.

So, this Christmas I am going to pay attention to the things I’ve done every year, even if I don’t feel like doing them. I invite you to do the same. Let’s read the stories again. Sing the carols again. Light the candles, give and receive gifts, be present with people as best we can. These may feel like hollow rituals at first. But ritual can move us toward the object of our desire when we don’t feel like moving.

This Christmas, do not let what has changed drown out what has not.