At the start of Advent season, I felt God prodding me to write for those who have experienced loss, for those who feel and are alone at Christmastime, for whom all the holly jolly is not the main emotion felt this time of year.
Then my husband and I lost a dear friend unexpectedly this last week. And shocking grief entered into our own world, sharing in the sorrowful loss of those we love and hold dearly.
As I have sat and prayed, reading, crying, I have been struck with how Christmas is actually for the lost, the lonely, and the ones who have lost.
Christmas first came to a humble teen girl. Her whole life trajectory and plans changed in an instant of surrendering to her Lord’s words over her- she was to bear the Son of God. Can you imagine the shaming, shunning, gossiping, and social and familial consequences she must have faced in those days? A young girl pregnant out of wedlock, more so claiming to be pregnant with the Son of God by the Holy Spirit, surely endured much. Still she called herself the “handmaiden of the Lord.”
The birth of Jesus was first announced to the lowly shepherds in their fields. These shepherds had forfeited any kind of esteemed life of service to God. A livelihood which demanded their all- relentless watching of dirty, wayward sheep, enduring all kinds of weather, robbers, wild animals, they only had each other and the stars for company. Yet it was for them that God split the sky with his heavenly host, and the light of His glory come to earth. It was they who were honored with the first encounter of the Son of God as a babe. And it caused them to worship.
Christmas came to an elderly woman who had served God all her days since her young widowhood. The Bible says that Anna did not depart from the Temple, but fasted and prayed day and night. Some scholars count her 84 years as after the loss of her husband, putting her at about 105! What was she fasting and praying for? In all those years walking closely with God, surely the Holy Spirit had revealed to her Messiah was coming as foretold. For she recognized him when she saw him. She then spent the rest of her days telling others the Savior of the world had come.
Through these stories, we get a glimpse of God’s heart. Whom does He take note of to bless? We tend to think of the blessed as ones who live a full life, have the things, get the spouse, have the family, succeed in what they do.
This is not whom God calls blessed, this is not even the definition of blessing.
This is God’s definition:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” Matthew 5:3.
It is the impoverished souls who are blessed by God.
The whole of the Bible affirms God’s track record in whom He chooses as His own.
He is the God of the widow, the barren, the orphan, the fatherless, the lonely, the thief, the adulterer, the prostitute, the beggar, the blind, the lame, the outcast, the downtrodden, the hopeless, the broken.
He is the God who has come for the sinner and the brokenhearted.
It only the spiritually hungry who are prepared to receive the gift of Christmas.
We get God.
Because God gives God. He poured Himself out into human form (I Timothy 3:16). He became our sin and entered into our brokenness- God Himself lost. He lost His Son. And Christ lost the rights and privileges of His Godhead, and became nothing for us. This was with the purpose to give us His righteousness (I Corinthians 1:30). The very righteousness of God! (2 Corinthians 5:21)
The message of Christmas is that God has come for you.
It is the debtors who are forgiven.
It is the lost who are found.
The empty who are filled.
The abandoned who are enfolded in the everlasting arms of God in Christ.
It is the lonely, the outcast, the too old, the disqualified, the depressed, that God takes note of.
God cannot bless those who do not want Him because the blessing God gives us is Himself.
In all our grieving, hurting, and the aching void we feel- we get Jesus. The One who knows and bore all our pain. And will erase it all someday.
For my single friends who wait with unfulfilled desires, my friends and family who remember great loss this time of year, my loved ones who ache with fresh loss, and for those who hurt physically, mentally, emotionally down into their very souls- I am keeping you close in my prayers and aching with you.
Our God suffered for us. And suffers with us.
“In all their affliction He was afflicted” Isaiah 63:9
Take hold of Emmanuel, Jesus, which literally means- “God with us.”
And for all that life has labeled you as and left you- He willingly adopts us when we come and receive Him, and calls us His children.
Christmas is about receiving God’s greatest gift- Jesus.
Let us rejoice with Mary in her song, “He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty” Luke 1:53.
May God fill you in your aching and may you find his everlasting arms underneath you.
Movement in a Mercurial World 