Christmas makes you feel emotional
it may bring parties or thoughts devotional.
Whatever happens or what may be,
here is what Christmas time means to me…
I was sitting in the doctor’s office earlier this month when I noticed it: an inner agitation I couldn’t quite shake. I sat quietly, taking deep breaths and trying to center myself. I looked around. The clinic already had their Christmas decorations out. A space heater hummed quietly by the front door of the small waiting area, sending wafts of warm air my way. Andy Williams was crooning his whoop-di-do’s and dickery-dock’s and at that moment, if I’d had a pellet gun, I swear I would have taken aim at the speakers. All of it felt stifling. The decorations. The cozy space heater. The crooning.
A few days later, I walked through a department store with my mom, noticing the various holiday decorations and gifts suggestively placed along the shopping aisles. All the hand-lettered, farmhouse, chalkboard, twine and burlap and buffalo plaid styling of it made me want to scream bloody murder. I felt like Christmas was being shoved down my throat.
I felt like hope was being shoved down my throat.
For starters, no one likes to have things shoved down her throat. Not even good things. I love cake with an ardent fervor, but if I’ve got a stomach ache, I’m not going to want any cake. And so it is that I entered December 2018. I love Christmas. I love the season and the lights and the Christmas plaid and the music and the memories and yes, the Hallmark movies, and yes, even the Pentatonix version of “Mary, Did You Know?” (Also, yes she knew and no she didn’t. Please just stop fighting about it.) But this year? Well, this year I’ve got a hell of a soul ache. So many of my people are in really hard places. The practical, spiritual and relational fallout of hostility and unchecked hubris pulls like so many millstones around my neck and the necks of those I love while the necks Jesus said should bear this weight appear to be flitting about completely unhindered.
I suffer from no delusions when it comes to the fallibility of mankind. I’m beyond the wide-eyed shock of naively wondering how we can all do and say harmful things. What I have found myself asking instead is: why?
It’s a question without an answer, I know. And the question whispered below my wondering, so faintly I have only just now begun to hear it matters infinitely more:
Don’t you know that I know your need, that I’m no stranger to your weakness? Will you dare to hope for the moment I send death’s dark shadows to flight?
Humbly, heavily, I sit with the question. I do believe. But hope? I’ve done a lot of that this year, Jesus. It’s taken quite a lot out of me. I mean, yeah, it’s given a lot back, too. More than I dared dream of, in fact.
But there are seasons to all of it – a season of sowing hope, and a season of reaping the harvest. And then there’s the season between the reaping and sowing. Between the harvesting and the planting. The inbetween season, when you’re not quite sure what to dream for next or what you’ll be asked to sow. How you’ll be asked to stretch and grow. It’s a bit unsettling, this season, with no shortage of uncertainty.
How can you dream of a harvest when you haven’t the foggiest what you’re about to put in the ground? Maybe this is when it’s hardest to hope. Sure, hope that is seen is no hope at all, but hope that’s not even been buried in the soil yet? What of that hope? What is that hope?
Is it enough to hope for hope?
Is it enough to know that we’ve planted before and we’ll plant again; we’ve harvested before and we’ll harvest again, but for now, perhaps the land needs a bit of a rest? Those words, they stick in my throat.
The land needs a bit of a rest.
After back-to-back seasons of sowing and reaping, the grasslands need a chance to re-grow lest the topsoil turns to anchorless dust to be carried away on the wind, sending hordes of us scattering west. And there it is. The thing that’s being planted is what’s already there – what naturally grows. Our root system. It’s what allows us to sow and hope and dream and harvest in the first place. Without it, we stand to lose everything. It’s the difference between looking out on an empty field and seeing barrenness or seeing fertility. After all, our dreams are only as fertile as the roots in which they’re anchored are sure. And if we do this resting and re-growing the way it’s meant to be done, we won’t just be making way for the next harvest – we’ll be cultivating crops for the next generation.
This is the part of Kingdom work no one tells you about. The unglamorous bit. It doesn’t sparkle. It hasn’t inspired catchy tunes. Families don’t gather to celebrate the re-growing days. Nobody carefully hand-letters “The inbetween season is my jam” on coffee mugs and v-neck tees. Maybe we should, though. Maybe we should learn to be okay with the season of rest and regrowth. Actually, not maybe. Definitely. We definitely should learn this.
You see, a very long time ago, there was a stump. Those who had known the stump as a tree were exceedingly confused at its becoming a stump. After all, this had been an immensely powerful tree. This particular tree was supposed to endure forever. Their every hope and dream had hung from its many branches. Yet there it sat, a withering stump. What those who had known the stump as a tree did not realize was that even a stump has roots. And so it was that just when everyone thought the stump was dead, a tiny shoot began to sprout. A budding, flowering, tender Branch shot forth, straight from the roots of Jesse’s stump.
A shoot from Jesse’s stump. A Branch from its roots. And His name shall be called Wonderful.
And so this year, I’m okay with not wanting Bing and Andy crooning away, telling me how to feel. I’m okay with a low tolerance for all things merry and bright. Most of all, I’m okay with not pretending it’s the harvest when, in reality, the fields lie empty.
I’m okay with hoping for hope. After all, even a stump has roots.