The Weary World Rejoices

The candlelight flickers in my December-darkened living room. Jarred red pillar candles with warm light speckle my piano by number, along with the Christmas cards of cozy families that have begun to criss-cross my living room. Edmund's favourite Christmas album is playing, the one from Charlie Brown and his lovely Christmas special. There is a quiet ache filling this space, and my 8-year-old has said once again, "It doesn't feel like Christmas." And so it has begun.

That ache really first began for me when my family of origin moved during fourth grade across the continent from Kelowna, BC (where we lived for a few short months with my grandparents and spent days filled with fun with cousins, and I slept in my auntie's old pink bedroom, sharing a bed with my oldest sister Christi) to a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. I remember that winter and Christmas feeling particularly cold and lonely, as I had spent the warm, bright summer months and early fall in what had always been my "home"-not where we lived long-term, but where our whole extended family lived with their warm smiles and cozy hugs, and the wicker hanging chair all of us cousins would pile into. "I'll Be Home for Christmas" would play in my mom's car, and I would see her cheeks glistening brightly. Every Christmas song seemed to carry a gentle ache, yet at the same time soothed my soul.

Then again, the ache returned when my sisters started getting married and moving away. Christmas would never be the same. The warmth of childhood memories of the four of us waking each other up and opening stockings together as we waited for Mom and Dad to wake up and come read from the gospel of Luke over homemade Christmas Sticky Buns and leftover Christmas Eve quiche. The loud singing in the kitchen and merrymaking as we all crowded the kitchen to make the Christmas turkey dinner and steamed the Christmas pudding. The crackling fire and the Christmas night tradition of The Sound of Music. All of these things were beginning to change as Christi left the house, and then Lindsey. I would be next, and while I tried not to miss one Siewert family Christmas, my brother would leave the nest, and we haven't all been back together since those many years ago when we all began to do the work of creating our own family Christmases. 

There is a holy melancholy that has grown in me each year as I have had my own family and have spent hours upon hours creating our own family traditions to keep the season well. Advent candles and Jessie Trees have marked for my little ones what day it is, and how many days are left until our awaited Christmas morning, where we will celebrate our Savior's birth in reading scripture and spending time together with those we love. In my own heart, that soul-weary feeling has grown each year as my little ones have grown. The feeling that all is not well. All is not bright. This is the point.

The thing I have always loved about the season of Advent is that its purpose is to remind us while Jesus did come as a little baby to Bethlehem, He is coming back to finish His work. We like to sing about the baby and marvel at that mystery... but He came to redeem the world, and He is not done yet. We wait for Christmas, as we wait for the return of our coming King. The weary world rejoices at His first advent because of the second coming. Our Messiah--the expected king and deliverer of God's people--He is on His way.

So weary soul... I will tell you, as I tell myself: stop wondering why you feel "strangely" sad at Christmas-time. Maybe try to lean into it this Christmas. Let it remind you that this world is not our home. All of the many leavings we experience... the homesickness... the loss... the brokeness... the inability to find satisfaction, find their home here. The Christ Child came to begin His work of bringing us back to "the garden", except that the New Garden is going to be even better than the Garden of Eden, because it will be never-ending. Our souls are meant to long for that New Creation that He will bring back with Him. We long for unbroken friendship and family. We miss warmth and light... Look up, weary soul. Your redemption draws nigh. Look to Jesus to find your consolation. 

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." 

(CS Lewis, Mere Christianity)

"He who testifies to these things says, 'Surely I am coming soon.’ 

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!" 

Revelation 22:20