If It All Falls Apart This Christmas, Remember This
“[F]or my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,” Luke 2:30-31 (ESV)
Engaged to be married that June, I looked forward to a year of newlywed bliss. Instead, the year also came with the death of my three grandparents, grad school overwhelm, and a difficult, new teaching career. Distress and devastation replaced any delight. In a year of great loss, how could my young 20-something self navigate such sorrow with celebration?
When Christmas rolled around, I longed to find joy in my grief.
I’d hoped for gifts with glitz and glamour from my new husband to distract me and bring joy back to the season. Instead, he gave me a cheese grater. Y’all. A cheese grater. The kind with a handle that looks like a slingshot.
Why? I ask.
Because we don’t have one. He answers.
I’d like to say I cherished that cheese grater and thought of him every time I grated cheese. In reality, I wanted to use it like the slingshot it was and fire off cheese in the direction of the gift giver. Ungrateful, I know. The true meaning of Christmas? Hardly.
Nothing like a cheese grater to expose my disappointed and hurting heart.
How do we celebrate in our seasons of sorrow?
I can relate to King David’s lament in Psalm 119:81-82, worn out waiting for God’s help:
“My soul longs for your salvation; I hope in your word. My eyes long for your promise; I ask, ‘When will you comfort me?’” (ESV)
Instantly I remembered verses tucked into the Christmas story (Luke 2:25-35) about a righteous and devout man named Simeon who also waited his whole life, longing for Israel’s rescue and salvation.
What must it have been like to be in the temple when Mary and Joseph brought the baby Jesus to be dedicated, to not only see the Messiah but hold Him in his arms, the promised, long-awaited Savior of the world!
Did the words of King David from Psalm 119 ring in his ears?
My eyes long for your salvation and for the fulfillment of your righteous promise…
In this holy, full circle moment, did Simeon feel the weight of ancient, answered prayers as he exclaimed our key verse?
“…for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,” (Luke 2:30-31 ESV)
Jesus, meaning God is salvation, would bring good news to the poor, bind up the brokenhearted, comfort those who mourn, and provide for those who grieve. (Isaiah 61:1-2)
All of Simeon’s life, he’d read and studied and hoped, and here He was. God in his arms. Immanuel, God with us. (Matt 1:21)
Jesus didn’t come to take us out of hard things, but to be with us in them. To be with us in our lonely, our sad, our loss, and frustration. To bring joy and healing there.
This Christmas, if you are feeling ungrateful, grieving, or out of sorts, you are in good company. Jesus came for you. To be with you.
Like Simeon taking Jesus in his arms, let’s embrace Him in our hearts and take delight as our eyes see His salvation. He has come to be with us in our tears, and also in our laughter. Or even when we open that cheese grater. Because Jesus’ gift to us all is His presence.
Lord, thank You for coming to be with us in our hard places and to heal us with Your presence. As we remember this, may we sing boldly with hope, “Joy to the world! The Lord has come!” In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
What a great reminder for this Christmas Eve morning.