Christmas, according to our modern age, is supposed to be a time of delight and jolliness. Families bake gingerbread and sing carols. Children set up the nativity scene piece by piece, imagining what it was like the night the shepherds and wise men gathered around the manger. In Sunday school, I learned that Christmas was a holiday about rejoicing in the Savior’s birth. There was no reason to feel blue during the Christmas season — tears and sadness were reserved for Easter weekend. Christmas was supposed to be a respite from reality in which everything was merry and well in the world.
Yet, I did not magically feel happier nor more lighthearted during Christmas, as I still struggled with my own hardships and shortcomings. I recall watching a Christmas play with my family a few years back. I felt shame for not matching the festive mood of the atmosphere that everyone else seemed to gleefully emanate.
At one church Christmas service, I recall how my pastor referenced the song “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” He was so confident that Jesus’ birth signified “the hopes and fears of all the years …met in thee tonight.” Looking back, I question how accurate that statement was. As Apostle Paul says, creation still groans “in the pains of childbirth” at this very moment for freedom from this earthly realm. Paul’s truth, essential to the mission of Christ and our own human condition, was entirely absent from my one-dimensional notion of Christmas.
Christ’s first coming initiated a Way for us to be saved from our sinful state. Jesus came to earth not as a perfect baby who slept soundly, but as fully human. Christian media may portray Jesus’ birth as a glorious moment, but the situation of our Savior as born in a stable because nobody realized His true identity, illuminates how lost the world truly was and still is.
Jesus, the second man, took the role of a lowly lamb. He was the only sacrifice that could atone for the sin wreaked by Adam. But something significant has not yet been fulfilled in our world: His second coming. We are still hoping, still fearing for Christ to make all things right. God’s promise in Genesis 3:15 is still in suspension — the Savior has not finished crushing the serpent’s head once and for all. At Christmastime, we should not be blind to the reality that there is still enmity between humans and the prince of this world.
As eloquently stated by Christian author Joni Eareckson Tada, “Every Christmas is still a “turning of the page” until Jesus returns. Every December 25th marks another year that draws us closer to the fulfillment of the ages… to our heavenly home.” According to Hebrews 13, the earthly city we live in is not our final dwelling place. We are still looking for the city that is to come. We miss the full breadth of Jesus’ mission by only focusing on the immediate implications of his birth. If Christmas is truly about the arrival of Jesus to the world, it is only fair that we also celebrate all that he is to fulfill. This Christmas, we should not only feel joy, but patience and anticipation for Jesus to finish the work he was predestined to carry out due to the Fall.
