My brother and his family recently moved to a house that sits off the beaten path. I was sharing with someone about how we were going to go visit with them and was asked, “How do you get there?” In an off-the-cuff manner I said, “I am not sure if you can get there from here.”
For the past month we have been trying to get to Christmas. We can hardly say that we have taken the path of least resistance. Instead the road we have chosen is well travelled. We have taken the trail that leads us to crowded shopping centers, over-stocked grocery carts, and overextended credit cards. We have been guided by blinking lights and the jingle of cash registers. This last week we have moved into the fast lane. We are rushing to make sure all the items have been checked off our shopping list. We are navigating through the madness to pick up that forgotten gift. And if we are lucky, we will be able to put ourselves in park just before we blow a gasket.
Albert Camus wrote a novel titled “The Plague.” The scene is a city in North Africa where the plague has broken out. No one may enter the city or leave it for a long period of time. People are dying by the hundreds. Those who survive grow weary and sick at heart.
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One of the novel's characters is an old man. While looking into a shop window at Christmas, he thinks despairingly of his wife's face. He has not seen her face for so long and probably will never see it again. The memory of her face brings tears to his eyes. And then Camus writes these words: "Always there comes an hour when one is weary of one's work and devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart."
The obligation of serving others is not bad. It is simply at times misplaced. We want the Christmas dinner to be perfect. We want to give our children things that we were never able to get ourselves. We want our loved ones to receive thoughtful gifts. But in trying to make everyone happy could we be missing out what they need the most? The birth of Jesus reminds us that the answer to humanity’s dilemma is not God doing one more thing for us but instead simply coming to be God with us.
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Christmas is the gift of God with us. If God’s solution to our brokenness is being with us then that gives us a clue to our deepest problem. We are lonely. In an age where we are more connected than ever, we struggle with loneliness. Christmas is a time when we want to be loved but instead it can be when loneliness hits the deepest. People become sick and die or kill themselves at Christmastime because they are convinced that no one loves them, that no one cares. In a season where we run around doing things for others, people struggle the most with feeling isolated. Doing things for others can never take the place of being with one another. “For” is a wonderful word. We buy presents “for” the people we love. We cook our best meals “for” our family and friends. “For” is a noble word that speaks of noble acts but it cannot take away loneliness. No matter how much we do “for” people it will never replace being “with.”
“And they shall name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us.’” Not God “for” us, that will come with time, but right now, in our loneliness, we need to know that God is with us. Matthew starts out his gospel with the story of Jesus, God with us. He will end with Jesus promising to his disciples, “I will be with you always.” Everything Jesus does for us is first because he is with us. The power of salvation and what God does for us is based on the fact that God is with us.
Leonard Sweet tells the story of a mother of a little girl who was preparing herself to attend a very special social event that she had been looking forward to with much delight. The new dress she bought for the occasion was carefully laid out on her bed. But the little girl didn’t want her parents to go out that night, and she put up quite a fuss about it.
When the mother was out of the bedroom, the little girl thought she had found a way to keep her mother home. She took a pair of sewing shears from her mother’s sewing basket and she slashed the new party dress, ruining it completely.
When the mother came back into the bedroom, she just couldn’t believe her eyes. She was horrified by what she saw. But instead of exploding into a fit of anger, she just fell across the bed, crying bitterly, completely oblivious to her daughter’s presence in the room.
When the little girl saw her mother’s reaction she realized the seriousness of what she had done, and she started to tug at her mother’s skirt, calling out, “Mommy, Mommy,” but her mother continued to ignore her, acting as though she was not in the room.
The little girl, more and more desperate, cried out louder, “Mommy, please!” At last her mother responded: “Yes, what is it you want?” And the little girl answered, “Mommy, please take me back!”
We have torn to shred many of God’s good things. We have been selfish. We have been hurtful. We have broken promises. We have been self destructive. Our actions have left us feeling lonely. We have isolated ourselves from others. We stand begging God, “Please, take us back!”
God’s first response is not in doing something “for” us. God has chosen to take a nose dive into humanity and be God with us. And God with us means us with God. This is the gift we all can receive this Christmas if we will slow down enough from doing things “for” God and others and simply be.
