Christmas Reflections with Lucado, Charlie Brown, and the Grinch

     For much of this Christmas season, I haven't been myself. Most years, I love the baking, decorating, and wrapping. I start playing Christmas music after Halloween, and I plan presents with delight months in advance. But this year, it has seemed really hollow. Part of what has gotten me to this point is that life is hard. For whatever reason, Christmas can remind us of the things or the people we've lost, or the times we've felt unloved and rejected.  As I watch people put materialism and busy Christmas activities over love, family, and God, I find myself echoing Charlie Brown: "Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"
     That's why, this season, there's really nothing more appropriate to talk about than the love of God. That's the most important thing about Christmas. We get swept away by the shopping and the wrapping, and the food, and I think we end up congratulating ourselves if we remember to stick Jesus somewhere at all in our celebration. And all those wrappings seem to be celebrating nothing real, because when we don't remember how loved we are, we really are celebrating a hollow Christmas.
     If we could step back from all this, we might be able to get some perspective, because I think that's what we need when we get bogged down by the humdrum of Christmas.
     Many of us would say that God becoming flesh and coming to earth, living a life, and dying, was a miraculous act of love. But if we step back even further from that, we are reminded that Jesus coming to earth was only a small, but crucial chapter - the climax, of of the story of God's love for us.
     First, God created. He created time, space...everything - just to put us in it. Then, when it was all prepared, God created us. And it's the way He created us that causes the need for God to come to earth. Granting humankind the ability to choose is a decision that I probably would not have the wisdom or guts to make. Lucado says, "What a dangerous liberty. How much safer it would have been to finish the story for each Adam. To script every option. It would have been simpler. It would have been safer. But it would not have been love. Love is only love if it is chosen."
     And God knew what we would do. When he decided to give us the ability to choose, He knew we would abuse that privilege, and He knew the consequences. Weirdly, Lamentations is one of my favorite books in the Bible. Here, God writes a long description of the results of sin, not as a condemnation, but as an outpouring of sorrow. He observes the slavery, disappointment, betrayal, restlessness, sorrow, loneliness, humiliation, crushed beauty, regret, shame, filth, recklessness, defilement, lack of strength, guilt, and hurt we feel as a result of sin. The things that happen don't even have to be a direct result of a wrong action - the fact that Adam sinned simply broke the world. It's fallen, and now, bad things happen. Israel cries out, "My groans are many and my heart is faint" (1:22), and bemoans that they find "no resting place" (1:3). The consequences of sin, well, they stink. A lot. Pain often makes you ask why God would let this happen. For me, I sometimes honestly wonder if the ability to choose is worth all this. Honestly, I think what triggered my Grinchiness was when the five-year-old girl across the street from me, whom I love, told me, "My daddy had to leave because he touched my vagina." How can you respond to such a thing? I've had a lot of hard stuff come my way in life, and stuff like this just makes me feel like love is a lie, or maybe that it's not worth it.
     But God is so wise, and He knew that a real relationship with him is the best thing that can happen to us. And when we feel like sin is overpowering love, that's a lie. God is love, and God is infinite, and love in its truest form, is infinite. To experience true love is to experience God. Anything that is not love is not God's, and that makes it finite. So when you see how big sin is, God's love is comparatively vaster than the ocean is to a pebble. The infinite will engulf the finite. A love like that is beyond description. Tasting it now, and fully experiencing it when we become uninhibited by the burdens of this world - it's wonderful, and because God loves us, He wants us to be able to experience that, like any good father would.
     But that's only half of God's love story. He wanted us to experience love despite its high cost. But He also always intended to shoulder the burden and pay that cost. And "that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown," as Linus would say.
     Christ coming to earth is the down payment in redemptive history. When Jesus came to earth, He, again with the centrality of choice in mind, paid the ultimate price so that we could start to see restoration. When Jesus came to earth, he bound his infinity in an ugly, poor, finite human body to grow up, suffer, and bear separation from the Father, from perfection, and from heaven. Do you see the pain Christ undertook by choice for us? Max Lucado describes, "'Can anything make me stop loving you?' God asks. 'Watch me speak your language, sleep on your earth, and feel your hurts. Behold the maker of sight and sound as he sneezes, coughs, and blows his nose. You wonder if I understand how you feel? Look into the dancing eyes of the kid in Nazareth: That's God walking to school. Ponder the toddler at Mary's table; that's God spilling his milk. You wonder how long my love will last? Find your answer on a splintered cross, on a craggy hill. That's me you see up there, your maker, your God, nail-stabbed and bleeding. Covered in spit and sin-soaked...That's how much I love you."
     And God's not done. Clearly, sin and its effects are not wiped from the earth yet - rather, we can choose to allow God to start that work in our lives. As He removes sin from our lives and removes the consequence of our sin which is our condemnation, God allows us to become a part of His work of redemption. Part of Christmas is the hope it brings. God promises to extend the restoration Christians see today to the whole earth. Christmas celebrates the first coming, and we look forward to the final redemption at the end of this story of love and at the beginning of eternity. This time, He will erase all sin and all the pain that is the consequence of sin, for those who choose to be a part of this redemption. Revelation 21:4 says, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

     Perhaps, my fellow Grinches might have the revelation that Christmas could have "came without ribbons!... came without tags!... came without packages, boxes, or bags!" But when we start to feel disillusioned and discouraged, we must remember that pain is not a reason to hate Christmas. Pain is the reason to love Christmas - it is the reason for Christmas. Remember God's love, and perhaps you can find joy in spreading that love this Christmas with the presents and wrappings in their proper places.