“Christmas – that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance – a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved” (Augusta E. Rundel).

I love the entirety of the Christmas season. My only dislike is that the days go by far too fast for my liking and before you know it, both Advent and Christmas are soon over.

For me, Christmas is a time of remembering as much as it is a time of celebration. I think of all those I’ve lost who made Christmases past so wonderful and memorable.

It seems like this year there’s an empty chair at the dinner table and an empty seat at the family gathering. There’s one less voice in the conversation and one less gift under the tree.

For me, it’s not so much sadness that prevades (though there’s a bit of sadness) as much as gratitude for having known all these wonderful people who shaped me and made me who I am.

I raise a glass and toast you, Raymond, Iris, Bob, Monty, Timothy, Bud, Maria, and Ruby. I carry your love and memories with me today and every day.

“When the Maker of time, the Word of the Father, was made Flesh, He gave us His birthday in time, and He, without Whose divine bidding no day runs its course, in His incarnation reserved one day for Himself. He Himself with the Father precedes all spans of time, but on this day, issuing from His mother, He stepped into the tide of years. Man’s Maker was made Man that He, the Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast, that the Bread might be hungry, that the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired from the journey, that Truth be accused by false witnesses, that the Judge of the living and dead be judged by a mortal judge, that the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Vine crowned with thorns, the Foundation be suspended on wood, that Strength might be made weak, that the Healer be wounded, that Life might die” (St. Augustine).

Why did God take on human flesh in the form of Jesus?

If it’s to tell us that all we really need to do is try a little harder and be a little nicer to each other, He might as well have stayed in heaven.

If it’s to add to the many roads that lead to God, then again Jesus’ life was pointless and His death was a waste. On top of that, His own words prove He was either a liar or a lunatic.

If it’s to tell us that we’re all okay, then He needn’t have bothered. I think deep down we know that we’re not okay, that the world we live in is not okay, that we need someone other than ourselves to get us out of the mess we’re in.

Jesus didn’t come to make good people better or even bad people good– He came to make dead people alive. He came to seek and save the lost. He came to reconcile the estranged to God, to turn aliens and strangers to God’s promises into the very sons and daughters of God.

We do no one any good if we compromise the gospel message to the point that it offers no hope any longer. When we become so much like the world around us that we no longer have a distinct message, we might as well all go home and live however we like and forget about church.

The world around us doesn’t hate us because we’re too different from them, but oftentimes because we’re not different enough. They don’t need our appeasement or our compromises as much as they need the message of hope that rang out on that December morning all those hundreds of years ago.

God has come to us to dwell with us and be our God and we can be His people. As John 3:16 says, whoever believes in Him need not perish but have true and eternal life to the full.

Here’s a quick update. The reign of Queen Peanut has gone smoothly, as all of her subjects are quite contented and happy.

This little gal is still the most laid-back, gentle soul who almost never gets rattled or skittish.

She’s still not a fan of the outdoors or strangers. But she still loves her naps and belly rubs.

I suppose I should probably buy her a little something nice for being such a good little cat. After all, she’s earned it.

Getting ready for Christmas isn’t about having every gift bought and wrapped.

It’s not about having your house immaculately clean and decorated.

It’s not about having every square inch of your yard festively lit up and glowing in LED wonder.

The only present that matters this Christmas is not the one that’s perfectly wrapped with a sparkly bow on top and resting underneath your tree. It’s the one crudely wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger of all places.

That’s the gift that truly keeps on giving. That’s the one gift that matters and won’t be forgotten the next day or week or month or year. Or ever.

It’s the only gift able to bring the dead to life, make the lame walk, heal the sick, comfort the broken hearted, restore the fallen, and reconcile the lost to God.

God has given the gift of Himself as a helpless baby who will one day grow up to be the Savior of the world.

Will you receive it?

Christmas is generally a festive and happy time of the year, but not for everyone. For those who have lost family members, this time of year is often when the grief is felt most keenly and the hurt seems most present.

This is one of my favorite songs honoring those we’ve lost and miss, knowing that they are gone from our sight but not from our hearts:

“Snow is falling Christmas Eve
Lights are coming on up and down the street
The sound of carols fills the air
And people rushing home, families everywhere

Putting candles in the windows
Lights upon the tree
But there’s no laughter in this house
Not like there used to be
There’s just a million little memories
That remind me you’re not here
It’s just a different kind of Christmas this year

In the evening fires glow
Dancing underneath the mistletoe
A letter left from Santa Claus
Won’t be the same this year in this house because

There’s one less place set at the table
One less gift under the tree
And a brand new ache to take their place inside of me
I’m unwrapping all these memories
Fighting back the tears
It’s just a different kind of Christmas this year

There’s voices in the driveway
Families right outside the door
And we’ll try to make this Christmas like the ones we’ve had before
As we gather round the table, I see joy on every face
And I realize what’s still alive is the legacy you made

It’s time to put the candles in the windows, the lights upon the tree
It’s time to fill this house with laughter like it used to be
Just because you’re up in heaven, doesn’t mean you’re not near
It’s just a different kind of Christmas
It’s just a different kind of Christmas this year” (Mark Schultz)

The following excerpt originally appeared in Whistling in the Dark, and later in Beyond Words.

“The lovely old carols played and replayed till their effect is like a dentist’s drill or a jack hammer, the bathetic banalities of the pulpit and the chilling commercialism of almost everything else, people spending money they can’t afford on presents you neither need nor want, ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,’ the plastic tree, the cornball creche, the Hallmark Virgin. Yet for all our efforts, we’ve never quite managed to ruin it. That in itself is part of the miracle, a part you can see. Most of the miracle you can’t see, or don’t.

The young clergyman and his wife do all the things you do on Christmas Eve. They string the lights and hang the ornaments. They supervise the hanging of the stockings. They tuck in the children. They lug the presents down out of hiding and pile them under the tree. Just as they’re about to fall exhausted into bed, the husband remembers his neighbor’s sheep. The man asked him to feed them for him while he was away, and in the press of other matters that night he forgot all about them. So down the hill he goes through knee-deep snow. He gets two bales of hay from the barn and carries them out to the shed. There’s a forty-watt bulb hanging by its cord from the low roof, and he lights it. The sheep huddle in a corner watching as he snaps the baling twine, shakes the squares of hay apart and starts scattering it. Then they come bumbling and shoving to get at it with their foolish, mild faces, the puffs of their breath showing in the air. He is reaching to turn off the bulb and leave when suddenly he realizes where he is. The winter darkness. The glimmer of light. The smell of the hay and the sound of the animals eating. Where he is, of course, is the manger.

He only just saw it. He whose business it is above everything else to have an eye for such things is all but blind in that eye. He who on his best days believes that everything that is most precious anywhere comes from that manger might easily have gone home to bed never knowing that he had himself just been in the manger. The world is the manger. It is only by grace that he happens to see this other part of the miracle.

Christmas itself is by grace. It could never have survived our own blindness and depredations otherwise. It could never have happened otherwise. Perhaps it is the very wildness and strangeness of the grace that has led us to try to tame it. We have tried to make it habitable. We have roofed it in and furnished it. We have reduced it to an occasion we feel at home with, at best a touching and beautiful occasion, at worst a trite and cloying one. But if the Christmas event in itself is indeed-as a matter of cold, hard fact all it’s cracked up to be, then even at best our efforts are misleading.

The Word become flesh. Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed. Incarnation. It is not tame. It is not touching. It is not beautiful. It is uninhabitable terror. It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light. Agonized laboring led to it, vast upheavals of intergalactic space, time split apart, a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself. You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this: ‘God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God . . . who for us and for our salvation,’ as the Nicene Creed puts it, ‘came down from heaven.’

Came down. Only then do we dare uncover our eyes and see what we can see. It is the Resurrection and the Life she holds in her arms. It is the bitterness of death he takes at her breast.”

Ok, I get that not everyone likes eggnog. Bunch of weirdos. Even if you’re not a fan of the festive holiday beverage, there’s something out there that you like that makes your little heart happy. Go find it.

Read a book. Binge your favorite TV show. Take a long hot shower.

Whatever it is, I give you permission to go and find your happy.

Simply, the why of Christmas is Jesus.

We on our own could never hope of getting to God, so God took on our skin and came to us.

We could never on our own be good enough for God, so God in Jesus became our goodness by His own perfection.

The Bible says that we were strangers to God’s promises, far away from hope, and as lost and helpless as humanly possible, but God in Jesus came near to bring us near, to give us hope, and to save us from our sins and ourselves.

Christmas is Emmanuel. God with us. God for us. God in us.

“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. 

But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us” (Timothy Keller).

How many of us feel unknown and unloved? How many out there are dying for someone to see them and not to feel invisible?

Maybe you’re the one who will notice the one no one else sees. Maybe you’re the one who will remember what it was like when God loved an unloveable you and you in turn will love someone expecting nothing in return.

Everybody needs to know that they are fully known and truly loved. Only God knows us completely and only God loves us unconditionally and supremely. All the true love we share is God’s love within us flowing out to others.

Do you know and understand and accept that you are fully known and truly loved by God? All He asks is that you receive that love in Jesus.

“God must become the equal of the lowliest. But the lowliest is one who serves others. God therefore must appear in the form of a servant. But this servant’s form is not merely something he puts on, like the beggar’s cloak, which, because it is only a cloak, flutters loosely and betrays the king. No, it is his true form. For this is the unfathomable nature of boundless love, that it desires to be equal with the beloved; not in jest, but in truth” (Søren Kierkegaard).

God became like us so that we might one day become like Him. That’s the story of Christmas distilled down to its essence. The very Jesus who existed in the form of God took on the form of a man and humbled Himself to the point of a criminal’s death on a cross.

Yet this very same Jesus will return not as a lowly infant but as a conquering King. He who has known all our sorrows will one day wipe away all our tears and forever undo all the evil that caused those very tears. He who was tempted in all the ways we are yet was without sin will one day put an end to temptation and sin for good.

I love the quote that says because of the resurrection, the worst thing is never the last thing. Jesus’ story didn’t end with crucifixion, and neither will the story of His children end in defeat. Death will not have the final word.

Remember even in the victory, Jesus will still bear His scars. Even as reigning king, He won’t ever stop being the One who stooped to wash our feet.