The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?
by Amanda Christopher
Christmas. The most wonderful time of the year, according to the song.
But I know there are many who entered the Christmas season with heavy hearts. Those who lost loved ones this year. Those who are separated from loved ones right now. Those who lost their jobs, or whose businesses closed, who are barely able to make ends meet month to month, let alone buy Christmas gifts. Those who are exhausted from all the strife this year, whether racial or political, global, national, local, or personal. The world is weary.
My heart and mind are always turned toward the suffering at Christmas time because the exhaustion, pain, and weight of grief can feel so much heavier during a time that should be joyful.
I have been thinking about the history of pain in the world. It wasn’t always an inevitable part of existence. When God made the world, it was good. There was no suffering, no death, no pain. Then sin entered creation through the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and we see the word “pain” for the first time in the Bible:
To Eve: “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.” (Gen. 3:16)
And to Adam: “Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” (Gen. 3:17)
Sin brought death to humanity and all of creation. Since that day, the world has writhed in the effects of sin: sickness, wars, relational strife, murder, loss…the list goes on and on. But God always had a plan. He promised a serpent crusher. God spoke to his people through the prophets, who told of a coming Messiah, of redemption and restoration. Then for 400 years, God was silent, and the world waited.
Then on a seemingly ordinary night in a small town, through the pains of childbirth, those pains that started with the first woman and the first sin, a new young mother brought forth her son and her Savior. The one who would rescue the world from its brokenness, who would redeem, restore, and reconcile us to our Creator.
Jesus, Emmanuel, God in flesh. Fully God and fully man, He was well acquainted with pain and suffering in His earthly life. He knew all the everyday physical and emotional pain we do. But we will never know the kind of pain and death that He did.
In the garden, the night before His crucifixion, He was so distressed that His sweat was like blood. He pleaded with the Father: if there’s any other way to do this, let’s do that instead. Then He submitted to His Father’s will, and the next day, experienced more agony than any man ever has or ever will, as He was beaten, spit on, crowned with thorns, and nailed to a cross to die. Because He carried our sin in His death, His Father could not look on Him. For the first time in all of eternity, the perfect union of the Father and Son was broken, as Jesus cried out, “Abba, Daddy, why have you forsaken me?” and He gave up His life.
But that wasn’t the end! Three days later, Jesus rose from the grave. He had defeated sin and death and Satan. He finished His work on earth and ascended back to the Father, and we know He is coming again someday, to fully and finally defeat Satan and establish a new heaven and new earth, where suffering and death will be no more.
And that is why we have hope at Christmas. Even with our heavy hearts. Even after the hardest year some of us have ever known. Even in the midst of loss, uncertainty, sickness, grief, and suffering, we know that over 2,000 years ago, a baby was born who would change everything. In the same way the world waited for the Messiah’s birth, we wait for His return. We wait for Him to make all things new, to wipe away every tear from every eye.
You have a Savior who knows your pain and sorrow. Because of His suffering, you are not alone, and your suffering is not in vain. If you are weary and hurting this Christmas, lift your eyes to Jesus. Remember that His death purchased your redemption and that the suffering of this life is nothing compared to the glory that is coming. Rejoice! Emmanuel has come.