The Longest Night
Psalm 74:15-16
Today is the shortest day of the year and tonight will be the longest night.
It serves as a reminder that in this season of giddiness, excitement, and parties that for some, all the celebration is also the experience of someone missing.
For some, this will be the first Christmas morning without someone who was always there. There will be a vacant chair at the table. Someone went to heaven this year. Or it could be that someone now lives or serves abroad and the rest of us have to get used to simple fact of sheer distance. Or it could be that a relationship shifted or ended.
For some, this will be the Christmas with an unwelcome shadow. Illness arrived, changing everything. Or again, a relationship altered its course, and now things are not at all what they used to be. For some, it is the wrestling with depression or anxiety--two things that the season with its commercial wrapping only exacerbates.
For still others, it is an awkward time of awkward interactions. Not everybody likes everybody else. That's just life. But the holidays often make us mix with those with whom we are not the most comfortable. Oh, boy...there goes Uncle ______ again! Someone take his eggnog before insults Sis' boyfriend!
We tend to shy away from these reminders of our simple humanity. We tend to disown the reality that we have our limits, that we are frail, or that not everything goes according to plan. We tend to run away from the darkness that is also a part of life, preferring to pretend that all is always light. But as the Psalmist reminds us, light comes with dark. We are a little of both. Every experience blends the two.
Our Hebrew forbears declared the day actually started with night, then got interrupted by light.
I like that.
That is what Christmas is all about--Jesus, the Light of the World, comes at night. The love of God enters our mixed and muddled world and our mixed and muddled lives.
There is hope. There is peace. There is joy. There is love.
But we have to be carry those promises to one another, especially those who feel the season shoves them aside. We have to enter one another's darkness. In so doing, we bring the promise of God to all.
May it be so.
Today is the shortest day of the year and tonight will be the longest night.
It serves as a reminder that in this season of giddiness, excitement, and parties that for some, all the celebration is also the experience of someone missing.
For some, this will be the first Christmas morning without someone who was always there. There will be a vacant chair at the table. Someone went to heaven this year. Or it could be that someone now lives or serves abroad and the rest of us have to get used to simple fact of sheer distance. Or it could be that a relationship shifted or ended.
For some, this will be the Christmas with an unwelcome shadow. Illness arrived, changing everything. Or again, a relationship altered its course, and now things are not at all what they used to be. For some, it is the wrestling with depression or anxiety--two things that the season with its commercial wrapping only exacerbates.
For still others, it is an awkward time of awkward interactions. Not everybody likes everybody else. That's just life. But the holidays often make us mix with those with whom we are not the most comfortable. Oh, boy...there goes Uncle ______ again! Someone take his eggnog before insults Sis' boyfriend!
We tend to shy away from these reminders of our simple humanity. We tend to disown the reality that we have our limits, that we are frail, or that not everything goes according to plan. We tend to run away from the darkness that is also a part of life, preferring to pretend that all is always light. But as the Psalmist reminds us, light comes with dark. We are a little of both. Every experience blends the two.
Our Hebrew forbears declared the day actually started with night, then got interrupted by light.
I like that.
That is what Christmas is all about--Jesus, the Light of the World, comes at night. The love of God enters our mixed and muddled world and our mixed and muddled lives.
There is hope. There is peace. There is joy. There is love.
But we have to be carry those promises to one another, especially those who feel the season shoves them aside. We have to enter one another's darkness. In so doing, we bring the promise of God to all.
May it be so.
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