The Reason for the Season
Laura is a wife and mother of 3 sweet girls. She works as a Recovery Coach, providing support to those impacted by addiction. She loves coffee, reading, writing, and being at home.
“Jesus is the reason for the season,” we say as we design Christmas cards, bake cookies, put up the tree, buy gifts, and plan for our family celebrations. We might do an advent calendar, pick which Christmas service we’ll attend, and set up a nativity scene to acknowledge that we’re Christians celebrating the birth of our King – though these things are often just another part of the to-do list.
So what does Christmas look like when we strip away all the lights and tinsel? I can tell you what it looked like for me 17 years ago.
In the first week of my senior year of high school, my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. Over the next three months, his health deteriorated. On December 22, he was admitted to the hospital, and on the morning of December 23, we said our goodbyes in a small hospital room filled with our family and closest friends.
When we left the hospital, we returned home to our Christmas decorations and our Christmas tree with gifts under it (how my mom managed to buy and wrap gifts that year while her spouse was dying, I will never know). Some of the presents under the tree were even for my dad – my dad who was no longer here on earth and couldn’t take any of these gifts with him.
I can’t recall the presents l received, the clothes I wore, or the food I ate that year. But I remember a family member buying me a sweater to wear for the funeral, neighbors delivering groceries, my mom’s siblings coming to help, and our church family sharing condolences and hugs during the candlelight service on Christmas Eve. Those moments and gestures were what mattered – our community being the hands and feet of Jesus.
What was true about Christmas then, and is still true about Christmas now:
Material gifts can never bring real joy. Gifts may bring momentary excitement, but not the joy that comes from an intimate relationship with Jesus.
The best Christmas cookies and feasts cannot satiate our hunger. Only Jesus can fill the emptiest parts of our being.
Matching outfits and Pottery Barn stockings don’t cover up our brokenness. “People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7, NIV)
No amount of planning gives us control. The will of Jesus always prevails, and a Christmas celebration is perfect only if it’s centered around Love.
Create your traditions, take the pictures, frost the cookies. But as you’re doing these things, pause, look into the faces of your loved ones, and give thanks to God – God who gave us Jesus in the form of a baby, born in a manager, to an ordinary woman. Christmas was never about the fanfare, but about stillness, about new life, and Love.
“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (1 John 4: 9-12, NIV)
