Bittersweet Christmas: When All is Not Merry & Bright

Facing grief over lost loved ones, broken relationships, or shattered dreams during the Christmas season

is a painful reality for many people. It can also feel profoundly counterintuitive. After all, isn’t it the ‘most

wonderful time of the year’? By as early as mid-October we start becoming inundated with messages

promising cheer, glad tidings, and everything holly jolly. Yet for plenty of folks, the experience is far from

jolly.

As Christians, it’s important for us to disengage from our culture’s hyper-focus on commercialism and

superficial merriment to rediscover the true reason for theses joyful sentiments: that Jesus Christ our

Savior has come! The gap between this miraculous truth and the experience of profound grief can cause

grievers to feel further removed from the message, the people, and the festivities around them.

Many people work to hide their grief at Christmas attempting not to ‘ruin’ the holiday for others. Not only is

this unhealthy and problematic for many reasons, but it is also not at all honoring of the original Christmas

narrative. For that, one must go beyond the meaning of Christmas, the miraculous and glorious, to

examine the story of Christmas, one of pain, fear, and loss.

The story of that first Christmas was more manure and mayhem than peace and joy. Displaced and

frightened, Mary and Joseph were anticipating the birth of their child and searching for refuge while some

10-30 baby boys were killed in the evil King Herod’s attempt to snuff out the life of the newborn king. The

‘massacre of the innocents’ was surely a time of tremendous grief and anguish!

Quoted in Matthew’s gospel is Jeremiah 31:15, “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping,

Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” In referencing

Rachel, often referred to as the ‘mother of Israel’, symbolic connections between her years of barrenness,

the loss of life of Israel’s children during the Babylonian exile at the time of Jeremiah, and the execution of

male children in Bethlehem at the time of Christ’s birth are made, demonstrating that despite enormous

loss and grief, God has a plan! Israel survived. Jesus survived. And so did the messianic promise that He

fulfilled!

Christ’s birth was always pregnant with bittersweet wonder. Like the birthing process itself, there is pain

mingled with the joy. God knew He was sending His son to earth as a baby born to die so that we all

might live. The babe born into poverty and wrapped in swaddling clothes had been wrapped in the

paradox of death and life from the very beginning of the story. From the cradle to Calvary, the incarnation

of Christ reveals both the source of and the great need for hope.

Like Christmas, the meaning of our lives too is miraculous and glorious and yet, the story of our lives

comes with pain, fear, and loss. When experiencing grief this Christmas, keep in mind that you’re not

contradicting Christmas. You are indeed testifying to the reality and need for Christmas.

We are not alone in our sadness. Try leaning into the pain some knowing that the “man of sorrows and

acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3) came to rescue the lost and heal the brokenhearted (Psalms 34:18,

Psalm 147:3)

We can celebrate with full hearts this Christmas. We are profoundly loved and known by the babe who

grew up to be King, who reigns now and forever. Jesus Christ is coming back for us and will someday

wipe away our tears, restore our tired bodies, and fully mend our hearts

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain”

Revelation 21:4