Oddly Dark

The Christmas season always takes me by surprise. Yes, I know it comes every year. That's not what I mean. It takes me by surprise every, single year with the way it seems to bring out and intensify the darker places of the heart. I don't remember having some huge internal philosophical thought about this when I was younger. It has grown over time and experience. Loneliness and loss don't get smaller, they get bigger. It can be an oddly dark time. It doesn't seem right, somehow, with all this effort to make things beautiful and bright and special, that we have to contend with darkness.

Perhaps this is intentional on God's part.

Perhaps we need to be reminded just why Jesus came.

Perhaps we don't need to gloss over pain and brokenness with lights and laughter and food and presents.

Perhaps we need to see it more clearly.

Jesus didn't come into a world of light and laughter and food and presents. He came into a world of darkness. The Bible says so. He came into darkness and tears and starvation and want.

He came to the lonely and the sick. He came to the hopeless and the despairing. He came to the weak and the poor. He came to the imprisoned and the addicted. he came to the orphaned and the barren. He came to the widowed and the friendless. He saw our insatiable and unsatisfied want for love. He saw our need for healing. He saw our unfulfilled desires, our bitterness, our lostness. He saw us and he loved us.

So, maybe it's not so odd after all that reminders of broken dreams, echoes of loss, pangs of separation, crushing weariness, surging loneliness, memories of hurt, shadows of bitterness all well up in this season rather than go lie down somewhere where we can forget about them. For when we look at them in this season, we cannot avoid seeing their scenery--trees, lights, music. We cannot avoid seeing the contrast. The darkness crowding around and into the valiant and frantic human effort to make light and joy.

But the darkness has not overcome the Light. Light of the world, you stepped down into darkness. Open my eyes and let me see....