Carried Along

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly it all ends.  We spend weeks, even months getting ready, and then in one day, it is all over.  The beautifully decorated tree with colorful gifts we have carefully bought, wrapped, and anticipated for months becomes a beautifully decorated tree we have to decide when to take down, pack away, and clean up after. As a child, I remember dealing with a fairly intense depression every year when the presents were gone and the family members had gone home to their various lives.  It was difficult for me, staring out at a barren Montana January (and February) after all of that holiday excitement. 

The truth is, the holidays are more commercial than I want them to be.  Yes, we make an effort to give Advent a significant place in the season; yes, we go to Christmas Eve service and acknowledge Christ’s birth on Christmas day, but I still buy into the Hallmark lie that the Christmas “spirit” is about small towns, decorations, gifts, and new first loves. And I have to admit that I am sad when it is over and “real life” comes in.  Sure, a little time off is nice, but the cleaning, decluttering, and planning for school to start again come way too quickly. The post-Christmas let down is just a glimpse of the fleeting nature of our earthly lives. We are way too earthly-minded in general, not just at Christmas. 

It is easy to go through this life with blinders on.  We are so busy worrying about chores, kids, money, and planning for our future, not in heaven but here on earth.  And yes, planning is important, but in God’s eyes our entire life is but a “vapor”.  Even in Isaiah 40, a chapter about the coming of Christ, the prophet reminds us:

“All flesh is grass,

    and all its beauty[d] is like the flower of the field.

The grass withers, the flower fades

    when the breath of the Lord blows on it;

    surely the people are grass.

The grass withers, the flower fades,

    but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:6-8).

This world we spend so much energy trying to conquer with money, reputation, and other earthly successes is fleeting. And while it seems like a lifetime is a long time, to God, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8). To him, our lives are like the Christmas season: something we take a lot of time to build up materially only to disappear in an instant.  

Our skewed perspective during the holidays is reminiscent of the first Christmas. The oppressed Jewish people hoped for a savior.  And just like us, they expected material results: freedom from unjust rule, exorbitant taxes, and general mistreatment.  And who could blame them?  If I heard the prophecy from Isaiah saying “. . .and the government shall be upon his shoulder” and “ . . .Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:6-7), I would think the same thing, especially if I lived under oppressive Roman rule. What did they get? A poor baby born to young nobodies in a stable. Yes, a few got it: some shepherds and wise men from a foreign land.  But as John tells us, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (1:11). Don’t we do the same? We fall for the lie that this Christless spirit of Christmas will somehow lift us out of our anxious, empty lives.  The lie that if we decorate enough and spread the “Christmas spirit” to others enough, we will summon some sort of Christless hope to draw from.  

The problem isn’t the gift we were given.  The gift is complete.  It was complete two thousand years ago,  and it is complete now. As Paul writes in Colossians, “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority” (2:9-10). The problem is our desires are not God’s.  When Jesus comforts the disciples in John 14, he says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). The Jewish world of Jesus’ time was just like us.  They wanted physical power to end their suffering.  We want instant gratification, reprieve from a world full of anxiety, fear, and emptiness. We don’t want to seek a God who has made himself available to us just to learn that his peace is in our hearts amidst worldly trials, not in the form of immediate relief from injustice or hardship.  Does he care about inflation, health issues, family drama, or the rise in anxiety or depression?  Absolutely.  But just like for the Jews living under Roman rule, he came not promising to free us from the trials of living in a fallen world, but to transcend them with a “peace that passes all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). 

Lord, help me enter into this new year seeking you and your peace alone, trusting you to sustain me in this life until your return.