Today it starts.
The best four days of the year. The days that we can taste Christmas coming in the children’s happiness and hope and the smiles people offer us as we walk through stores.
Sure, yesterday someone honked at me and showed me one particular finger to express his anger that I didn’t notice he wanted to merge into my lane since he didn’t have his blinker on. But today I can put that meanness behind me.
Because Christmas is here.
Every year at this time I’m keenly aware that not everyone experiences the same kind of Christmas. Some years are harder than others. Some years there are empty places in our Christmas because people we used to celebrate with are gone, or traditions we once treasured have ended for some reason. Not everyone has a tree and presents and joy and love to wake up to on Christmas morning. There are still homeless people on December 25. There are also children waiting for families and people who can’t find jobs. The Christmas lights on all the houses around us can’t drive out the grief and fear that our circumstances have brought us.
I know, I know. All the happy people don’t want to think about that. The unhappy people don’t particularly want to think about it either. At Christmas, we want to only think of all the abundant ways we’ve been blessed and forget all the ways the world is still waiting for rescue. But I kind of think we’re missing the point if we do that.
Somewhere in the story of Christmas, where God reveals his greatest miracle by exposing our deep and tragic weakness, there’s hope. What kind of God would send a baby to save all the people he desperately loves? How pitiful and needy are we, that a tiny, poor newborn could be our only hope for salvation?
When I really think about Christmas, I realize how silly it is that I ever think I know what I’m doing in life. Christmas means that I’m more blind than I’d like to believe. I have a great deal in common with the homeless man whose life hangs in the balance of whether or not he can find a pair of socks on a freezing cold winter night. We are both in need of something small and seemingly insignificant to rescue us.
Jesus told us to go and care for people the way he cared for us; to love others more than ourselves; to do the kinds of miracles he did and be the light of the world.
And today it starts.
Today starts the days that extreme kindness doesn’t seem all that weird. Today is when everyone’s hearts become softer, even if they haven’t believed in God a day in their lives. Today is when we listen to songs about Silent Nights of holy wonder sung by artists who usually only use the name of Jesus as a curse word. This is Christmas: the one time of year that a whole world is willing to celebrate love and hope. All we have to do is give them a reason to believe it’s possible.
I dare you to take Christmas to someone who doesn’t have much reason to feel loved or seen this year. I dare you to buy a big thermos and fill it with homemade cocoa, wrap a ribbon around it, and hand it to someone on the street tonight. I dare you to drop off a whole smoked brisket at a soup kitchen. I dare you to visit an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting this weekend and pass out cookies like trophies while you tell them they are ridiculously brave. I dare you to walk up to a family in a grocery store and hand them a gift card to pay for their groceries and a toy or two to fill their stockings. I dare you to call the friend you know is struggling the most this year and tell them you’re thinking about them and that you love them.
I know none of this will solve world hunger or end the pain of losing a child this month. I know these are all tiny things that seem like a drop in the bucket of the suffering some people face. But if a baby can save us from all our sin, maybe one small kindness can save someone from the loneliness they feel at Christmastime.
If you take my dare, I’d love to hear what you did. I’d love to know how it felt and who was blessed and how God met you in the middle of it.
I’m so grateful that Jesus dared to come for us. I’m grateful we have the Holy Spirit to comfort us and remind us that the love of God is a powerful force in the world, drawing us closer to the Father’s heart.
I hope that over the next few days you feel the tangible presence of God reaching out to wrap you in his love. You are a gift to him. Your life is a light in this world.
Shine on, sweet friends. Merry Christmas.
