When it's not a very Merry Christmas

I love Christmas. I really do.

You will never hear me beat on Santa Claus, Christmas presents, Christmas parties, Christmas trees and lights, Christmas cards, and even the wild shopping. I love every bit of it. I’m a player and a participant in all of it. But, I can distinguish between secular Christmas and the Christmas of my Savior. While the distinction blurs at times, they really are different approaches. And, it all becomes a suffocating blanket for many people (most people, really, at some point in their lives).

Many people use Christmas as a “me” holiday – drawing attention to self, wanting and wanting, and crying out for attention. You know that feeling you get when you’ve had too much sugar? You feel anxious. You feel empty even though you’ve eaten? You feel restless? Many people so over-indulge in the “me” of Christmas that they soon realize a desperate, hollowness around it all.

Many people are just weighed down by Christmas. Financial problems, strained relationships, the first Christmas without him or her, and isolation and loneliness engulf them. Some use Christmas as an ointment, believing the little song that goes, “Have yourself a merry Little Christmas, Let your heart be light, From now on our troubles will be out of sight.”

Many people have moved on to a darker place, realizing a little Christmas cheer isn’t going to make their problems disappear. Depression engulfs them.

The honest fact is that millions of people won’t experience “peace on Earth” this Christmas season. And, no matter how soon we start the celebration – October in big box retailers and playing radio Christmas music before Thanksgiving – Christmas as a secular holiday is not enough and will never be enough.

Only Jesus can bring peace to our lives, and that’s why His birthday is so wonderfully valuable to us.

As today, the world was a dark place on the night Jesus was born. People needed a Savior from the oppression of the Roman government and from their own leaders, who were “selling out” to the Roman government. And, at just the right time, God poured Himself into the darkness. God flipped a light switch through a beautiful star, and our Savior was born, and the opportunity for peace to one and all came into existence.

I know many, many people hurt at Christmas. I’ve been there. I know.

People don’t have the money they need to bless the people they love.

People are at odds with family, and they feel guilty over it.

People miss their loved ones; people miss Christmas “past.”

People are lonely. A single friend of mine said last week, “Being single is over-rated.” Everyone wants to love someone at Christmas. Romance blooms at Christmas.

People are sick and physically hurting.

People are realizing their grown children are moving on. They just don’t come around like they once did.

And, we cry out to Jesus, offering up our Christmas pain and problems made especially suffocating by all the lights, music, “pretty people” and excited rush around us.
And, Jesus hears our cries, but He has a different message for us than we might expect. In Luke 18:29-30, Jesus says this, “I assure you that everyone who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, will be repaid many times over in this life and will have eternal life in the world to come.” (NLT)

Jesus, I believe, is saying to me, “Scott, don’t just bring me your pain and problems at Christmas. I want you – 12 months each year for the rest of your days. I want every cell and fiber of your being. I want you to unhinge from this world and hinge to me. I want you to reshuffle the deck of all your relationships so that I am at the top of the list. And, when I have you, completely, surrendered to my will for you, I will also have your problems and pains . . . and I will bring peace to your life. Your problems and pains won’t disappear, but your perspective of them will. And, I will surround you with people who can walk the journey with you and me, and as you live for me – loving and serving me and others – you will learn that the peace of today will be magnified through the eternity yet to come.”

Surrender your entire life to Jesus. He wants you before He wants your problems even though your problems may well open the door for you to embrace Him fully.
Instead of a “woe is me” Christmas, use Christmas to pour your life into the lives of others. The Christmas spirit is only caught by giving away self to others in the name of our Lord.

“All to Jesus, I surrender, All to Him I freely give;

I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.

I surrender all, I surrender all;

All to Thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all.”
 ~ “I Surrender All,” music my Judson Van DeVenter and words by Winfield Weeden.