Christmas brings us back to the basics.
Christmas is the time to celebrate with fun, food and Family. We wish one another “Merry Christmas,” and for good reason as it is a season of happiness.
At the same time, life does not pause during the holidays and for many, the pain of our lives intensifies and threatens to overshadow the good cheer all around. This, however, is the reason for Christmas.
From the beginning, or nearly so, humanity has been faced with the grim conclusion, “things are not the way they are supposed to be.” We offer merry wishes and sing of good tidings, and yet it is a hollow response to the trials and temptations of this life.
Or is it?
Christmas brings us back to the basics.
“In this [salvation] you rejoice, though now for a little while, as was necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ,” the Apostle Peter writes in I Pet 1:6-7.
Two things are brought together in apparent contradiction – joy and suffering – as though the two are inextricably linked.
Christmas provides us with the proper perspective.
When the angel announced the birth of Jesus the Christ he said, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people.”
The baby born that Christmas night was the Savior promised from the beginning in Genesis 3:15 who would provide peace. In his life, Jesus experienced every privation and pain and took on himself the punishment for sin. He was born and died so that we might live. He suffered that we might rejoice. He rose again and will return so that we might enjoy the victory that is his alone by right.
Christmas brings us back to the basics.
Life is hard.
Christmas bestows meaning to every trial and dignity to every pain. For in the end, what Christmas began, we will enjoy forever.