Tag: Emmanuel

The Discipline of Christmas

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“A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices”

That song lyric has played on a loop in my mind for the past week. Our world certainly feels weary this year. Many of us put up the Christmas decorations early, started in on Christmas music before we normally would, and still we ache for that special “Christmas” feeling to redeem and round off what has been one of our least favorite years in recent memory.

In our weariness, it can be hard to feel hopeful. Maybe Christmas doesn’t feel the same, or maybe you’re just too worn out this year to put in the effort. I love Christmas more than most, but this year I showed extra restraint and waited to decorate until after Thanksgiving. I wanted Christmas to be special, reserved for a short time period, refreshing. But it wasn’t.

I felt heavy exhaustion in my body as I raised my arms to hang an ornament. I caught myself wanting to do anything else besides decorate, which usually sends me into giggles because of the wonder and giddy excitement I feel. As I played O Come, O Come Emmanuel on the piano, the music abruptly stopped a I reached the chorus. The words caught in my throat and I physically couldn’t continue. The transition from a melancholy minor to “rejoice, rejoice!” was too quick and hypocritical for me. Rejoicing feels far away from my thoughts, and my heart is bowed under burdens, not lifted up with hope.

But I’m learning this year that celebrating Christmas is a discipline. We should keep in the habit of practicing it whether we feel festive or not. In one of my favorite Christmas stories, the redemption comes at the end when we learn that, “It was always said of [Scrooge], that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that truly be said of us, and all of us!”

Keeping Christmas—cultivating hope—is a spiritual discipline. Christmas is for celebrating in the bleak midwinter. It’s for recognizing a light shining in the darkness that darkness cannot overcome. It’s a time when we remember that people walking in darkness have seen a great light, and that light has dawned on those living in a land of deep darkness. Christmas is the perfect time to celebrate hope in the midst of weariness, and joy underneath heavy burdens. It’s a time to celebrate awe strong enough to defeat cynicism, and wonder fresh enough to see miracles in an unbelieving world.

But these attitudes of worship—hope, awe, wonder, joy—they don’t just happen on their own. I have deeply loved Christmas since I was small, and that was in large part because I was fed Christmas cheer from every side. Many of my favorite memories are of these feelings. I vividly recall watching the stars at night as my family traveled to see relatives. Sometimes I watched in wonder for the silhouette of a sleigh to block out patches of stars on its way to deliver gifts. But I looked up and wondered also about what the star over Jesus’ birth looked like. I felt joy at opening gifts chosen by loved ones with great care, or at watching them open gifts I has lovingly chosen for them. I’ve spent hours of my life gazing in awe at the lights on Christmas trees, even as an adult. My jaw comically hangs open every time I breathlessly look at the fresh sparkle of snow under moonlight. And I learned of hope at a young age too, every year as we took down the Christmas decorations and I looked forward with trusting anticipation to next year when they would come out again.

As a child, these feelings surrounded me. Whether they were directed in worship or in childish fun, the “feeling of Christmas” was in the air and the ether. I absorbed it through the radio Christmas music, the tv programs, church events, holiday parties, and my parents’ faithful practice of advent. But as I grew up, the weight of the world grew heavier. “Christmas in the air” wasn’t enough, and I had to practice advent for myself, disciplining myself to remember hope in darkness, and to tend seeds of joy in the midst of suffering. Even now, this Christmas in Africa, I’m more likely to see a palm tree than an evergreen. And I can’t fall asleep on the couch to the soft glow of Christmas lights, because the mosquitos make it unbearable to be anywhere but under a net. Christmas cheer takes extra work some years.

A dear friend recently visited and I felt a thrill of hope in my for the first time this season. she carries a new baby inside her, and it brought tears to my eyes to feel that new life pressing between us as we hugged for the first time in too long. And later when I sat beside her, my hand on her stomach, waiting to feel the movement of life there, tears cam instantly to my eyes and my heart leapt.

A thrill of hope.

I remembered the story of Elizabeth, and how her baby leapt in her womb at the voice of Mother Mary. I remembered that small, fragile life can come in the humblest of circumstances and brings with it awe, joy, wonder, and hope.

It takes practice and discipline to train our hearts and minds to seek out these jolts of hope. It is hard work to recognize these moments of worship and let them wash over us to renew our mind and refocus our attention.

The liturgical calendar our mothers and fathers in the faith practiced is full of wisdom. It gives us patterns and rhythms to set aside times of the year for turning our mind to consider Jesus’ earthly life. These calendar year celebrations of Christmas or Easter were meant to give us discipline and practice. They give us the opportunity every year to wait expectantly on the birth and return of Jesus as we look behind to remember and look forward in hope.

So celebrate advent however you need to this year; set aside time or activities to remind yourself of the hope, awe, wonder, and joy the birth of Jesus brings even today. Put up your Christmas tree and turn on the Christmas playlist. Make cookies with a child who will find joy in the sugary mess of icing dripped across the counters. Bury your face in an evergreen tree and remember that the resinous scent means life continues through bleak midwinter. Look at the cold stars and find awe there that our God is Emmanuel, who came down once to be with us. Gaze into a crackling fire and feel the warm hope that a dark night of the soul will not last forever. Hold a candle in the darkness and marvel how a fragile, flickering flame can powerfully push back the darkness. Seek out the thrill of new life. Train yourself to find these worshipful moments. Thank the Lord of the gift of his son and the hope that He brings.

Emmanuel,

May we find room in our thoughts for you

As we celebrate your birth long ago when there was no room.

We desire to give you special awed Christmas worship

Even as you give us hope to hold out against the darkness.

Revive our weary souls with wonder at the thrill of new life.

As we wait expectantly for you to come again give us sweet joy

For the sight it will be when you return in kingly robes instead of manger hay.

Train our hearts on yourself, the object of our great wonder.

Give us practice in turning our thoughts toward awe at your goodness.

A Uniquely African Advent

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“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” — Isaiah 9:2

Christ followers around the world celebrate advent because it teaches us to wait. As we wait for Christmas and imagine what it must have been like to live before our savior was born, we understand that the Christian does not wait passively. We hope. We prepare. We lament. We pray. We continue in daily faithfulness.

And this waiting—this numbering our days—teaches us holy habits. This season of anticipation for our savior’s birth trains our spiritual muscle memory to wait for our savior’s second coming in the same way.

This Christmas season has been a different one for me. I’ve spent Christmas overseas before: once for a brief visit in Cambodia and twice while I lived in Bulgaria. But my hot-climate Christmas was quickly followed by a return to the States and a wintry celebration back home with family. And my Bulgarian Christmases still surrounded me with snow, Christmas trees, carols, hot cocoa, and sweaters.

Christmas this year is on the equator, and the thriving palm tree just outside the front door dwarfs the fake Christmas tree just inside it. The only Christmas carols I’ve heard are the ones I played myself on the piano or from Spotify. I knew properly celebrating Christmas would take an extra effort when things feel so different, so I over-decorated and picked advent Bible readings to add to my normal quiet times. Little did I know how much my African context and regular readings in Kings would prepare my heart for advent all on their own.

I interact with refugees every day. Their heartbreaking situations are often normalized and mundane for me, but the heaviness slowly wears on you. It bows your back and puts a damper on your spirit. We talk about the hope of Christmas. I’ve shared my favorite Christmas verse from Isaiah about how a people walking in darkness will see a great light. But the reality is that I live in a land of lament among a people greatly acquainted with suffering. They carry with them an infectious ache for healing and a world made new. Deep in their spirits they yearn for great tidings of comfort and joy, and peace on earth to all mankind. Their longing for advent—for the savior’s coming—is not artificial or put on in any way.

 

Early in December I read 2 Kings chapter 7, which is a story from the siege of Israel. With Syrians at the gate and the last of the food gone days ago, the people were desperate. They ate donkeys’ heads, doves’ dung, even their own children. In that hopeless hour, God gave the people a sign to remind them he was with them: the next morning not only would the city have food staples they hadn’t seen in days, this food would sell for fractions of its normal price.

Sure enough, two outcasts with nothing to lose left the city that night to seek out the enemy camp. What they found was a ghost town. Provisions scattered, tents left standing, not a soul to be found. The Lord had frightened off the enemies with sounds of heavenly chariots. The men who found the camp gorged themselves on food and hid valuables they found free for the taking. But in the midst of their delirious joy, one had the presence of mind to say to the other, “What we’re doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.”

Those lines hit me like sack of flour. I decorate and celebrate Christmas in the midst of great darkness. I have good news! Great news of a savior born and a lost world saved, of comfort and joy, of hope for all mankind. Am I keeping it to myself? When the sun dawns and our savior comes back the second time, will I have shared this life-saving hope with the same conviction and urgency the men from the story shared their happy news with a starving people?

The truth is, refugees understand the waiting of advent, just like the men from the story did. They know what it feels like to wait for hope to come, straining their eyes to see from when or where help will arrive. They feel the world-weariness of the Israelites waiting for their savior, the Messiah, the Son of God.

An Arabic Christmas song I learned this year is about Emmanuel, God with us. We know our slow and haunting song, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” and its words remind us of the pain and suffering God’s people endured while they waited, and the monumental task it was to keep their faith and hope alive in the prophecies God gave them to hold on to. But this Arabic song beautifully turns that idea to our African context.

Beautiful news on the earth,

It was the day He was born!

The Son of God, Emmanuel, the Lord’s redemption.

The sound of drums!

And angels cheering in the heavens!

And we below, full of need,

We wait for it…

The new covenant!

 

The song slowly builds and reminds us; now that our God has come, he will not leave us til the end. It expresses the ache with which we wait, the ache for the new covenant, for our God to be WITH us.

I have felt that ache this Christmas season. I’ve been reading 1 and 2 Kings, through seemingly endless cycles of kings who “did evil in the sight of the Lord” and “led Israel astray” or “caused Israel to sin.” As I read a collapsed version, generations of oppression, sin, and waiting pass in the turn of a page. The people dig themselves deeper and deeper into disobedience and suffering. As this horrible period spirals to its end, the people suffer each and every one of the covenant curses the Lord promised them should they stop following him and break his commands.

At the very end, a weary writer pens very matter-of-factly that the cities were captured. The people were carried off into exile away from their homeland. And all of this occurred because the people sinned against the Lord their God who had rescued them from Egypt. He had led them to the promised land and commanded them not to follow the religions of the people he drove out before them. But even so, the people built altars, temples, high places, and they worshipped the pagan gods and spirits. They broke the first covenant, turned away from God, and suffered their consequences.

I’ve simmered in these verses, these cycles of disobedience all December, just like a good Christmas apple cider simmers to take in all the flavors. I’ve felt the ache from the outside, the ache my refugee friends know so well. But I’ve also felt the ache from inside, from the inevitable brokenness sin leaves in its wake. Whether we live in exile or under oppression or just enslaved to sin in our lives, every human knows what it feels like to long for a new day, and new hope, a savior to swoop in out of nowhere to pull us out of the pit we’re in.

That is why we wait. Those are the emotions and the longing we feel leading up to Christmas as we wait not only to celebrate our savior’s birth, but for the righting of all wrongs that will happen when he comes a second time. As my heart yearned for a savior to lead us out of our mess, my advent readings led me to Luke 4:

[Jesus] went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Those words of hope must have echoed in the silence of years of aching and waiting. This was good news indeed.