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The Joy and Sadness of Christmas

In a few weeks we will be celebrating again another Christmas. Christmas is meant to be a joyous time, centered on the virgin birth of our Lord and Savior- Jesus Christ. This is the time when should be proclaimed “ Joy to the world, the Lord has come; Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room, And heaven and nature sing”. This is the joy that the angel announced almost two thousand years ago, to some shepherds from the field, saying, just as we find written in Luke 2:10- 11. 10 “ Do not be afraid for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people” ; 11 “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord”.

The main purpose of this holiday is to remember the great love that God had shown to us, by sending His Only Son, to be born in a manger, to become like us, so, that we could approach Him just as we are.

I remember with a lot of fond memories the celebration of Christmas while growing up in Romania. We used to have Christmas for three days, but not with a materialistic flavor at all. In this three days we used to go to church where we had special programs along with beautiful music that was glorifying God for Who He is and exulted Jesus Christ, His Son under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Another common thing that we used to do, was to visit friends or to have people over. It used to be a very special atmosphere during all this time; we had the same symbols for Christmas, such as Christmas trees ( although small) and someone taking the role of Father Frost, a character very similar to Santa Claus associated with the same legend. For some people, Christmas was reduced only to these symbols and to empty traditions, thus lacking the joy of Christmas much proclaimed by the angel when Jesus was born, just as we see all around us; for others, Christmas is the most important holiday of the year- the birth of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. It is so sad to limit such a powerful event that the world ever knew, (outside of the Resurrection) to just some simple routine (that becomes taboo) of beautiful decorations and a whole lot of materialism. We used to give gifts to each other, remembering that Jesus is our greatest gift of all, but the emphasis was the celebration of Jesus’ birth.

Coming here in the States I was very interested in the celebration of Christmas; I saw many beautiful traditions of lights of diverse colors, Christmas trees nicely decorated, candelas along with many desperate souls, discouraged ,depressed ,confused and sad people; many times I am observing what a contrast is between the powerful message of Christmas- message of joy, love, peace, hope and the reality created by people through the choices they made. One thing that I appreciate much this time of the year is the Christmas eve candle light service that I go to each year and I rejoice a lot. I like that with this occasion is mentioned more than any other time the miracle of God’s love, explained through Jesus’ miraculous birth in the shadow of the cross. Almost always the service ends with singing of “Silent Night”.

While our kids were little I had a resolve to celebrate Christmas the right way; we always read the Christmas story as it is recorded in the Holly Scriptures in the book of Isaiah, followed by the book of Matthew and Luke, John, etc; after reading or often during this time of reading we use to discuss what we read to make sure that those details were well understood and received, thus making room in our hearts for the King of glory, after which we sang a few beautiful carols that glorify God and blessed our souls, and then we prayed giving thanks to God for His indescribable gift of His Son, after which the gifts were open. We follow this “tradition” even today when our children are big , since themselves understand the real meaning of Christmas. We do not have arguments about this at all.

Today we are witnessing the crewel fight against Christmas and all that it means with the purpose of taking Christ out of Christmas, or eliminating Christmas altogether. It is so sad to see and understand how far this world ( this society) moved away from God, who is the source of all blessings that made this country great at some point.

How sad this is; we live in very hard and confused times and my heart hurts deeply inside because there is no more joy and anticipation, but only tiredness, madness and confusion.

Many times I asked myself what brought about this state of fact and was it always this way? I came to understand that from very beginning the world made a poor decision to choose what is evil and to reject the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Lords, the King of kings not allowing Him to guide their lives.

How good and encouraging would be to return to that joy that I talked about in the beginning, the joy of the Lord’s coming to us at first as a baby, “who grew in wisdom and favor with God and with men”. Let’s go back to that joy and let’s prepare our hearts making room for the Son of God who is Jesus Christ the Messiah.

I truly long for that harmony that the carol that I quoted in the beginning says: “Joy to the world, the Lord is come; Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room; And heaven and nature sing”.

Only then will the joy of Christmas will be felt in all its intensity when the earth will be ready to receive this King of Glory, when every heart will prepare a room for Him to live in, when heaven and nature will sing together.

O, what a time that will be. No more madness, no more confusion, no more tiredness, no more hopelessness, no more hatred or deceit, no more discouragement, but truly joy, joy, joy .

Mihaela S. Hegstrom – December 7, 2010