Caught Up In Humming

I immensely enjoy listening to the local FM station that provides a continuous genre of Christmas music which began the day after Thanksgiving. I was captured one morning last week when I pulled from the garage and playing was the song; “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” Then Jason, my son-in-law mentioned the song, last Sunday, in the introduction of his sermon. I’ve been familiar with the song for I don't know how many years, yet couldn't remember the last time I heard it. But I've notice, at various times, and for long periods during the day it seems to be stuck in by head.  With kids jingle belling/and everyone telling you/”Be of good cheer,”/It’s the most wonderful time of the year. I caught myself humming the tune, repeating phrases of it silently and at other times out loud.  I still am curious as to the psych of it all but feel uplifted as if it truly is the most wonderful time of the year. 

On The other hand, I'm thinking that for too many individuals I hang around with at the shop or coffee shop, Christmas seems anything but wonderful. I think of my best friend, maybe in this world, that has just broken his leg, at seventy three and may spend Christmas day in a rehab center. My humming comes to an abrupt halt when I think of the possibily. In fact, the joviality, décor, and holiday music played at the coffee shop or other places of business, I visit, simply seem to strike dissonant chords because of the memories, emotions, and experiences associated with this season.  I hear stories of sorrow and loss from neighbors, acquaintances, and folks in general.  I suspect some of these sorrows will mark their tellers' Christmas seasons for the rest of their lives. An acquaintance told me how he grieves the loss of a loved one from the violence of a body turned against itself through cancer.  Another of the debilitating and destructive disease of dementia.  For them, Christmas reminds them of yet another empty chair. Then there are others who are experiencing joblessness or underemployment, numbing loneliness, disappointed expectations, ruptured relationships, and rejection that twist and distort the joy of the season into a garish spectacle. I wonder if my outward demonstrations of uplift celebration this season will introduce an uplifting celebration, as well, or will friends and neighbors walk away thinking the most wonderful time of the year seems a cruel mockery? For all of these, and many others, the Christmas season seems more like the opening verse of Christina Rossetti’s haunting Christmas hymn, “In the Bleak Midwinter.” 

In the bleak midwinter, frost wind made moan,

earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone. 

I sort of sense, sitting here this morning, maybe for the first time in my life, I'm grappling with the realization that all the excitement, anticipation, and beauty of this advent season can easily be frozen by pain, disappointment and grief; instead of singing songs of joy, a bitter moan emanates like the cold, frost-bitten wind. What can I do? How can I fix it?    What an awful sense of hopelessness floods my soul! 

But not for long; I begin to think on the facts!  The fact that: Into this world—the world of the bleak midwinter—God arrived. The fact that: He was not sheltered from grief or pain.  The fact that: He descended into a world where poverty, violence, and grief were a daily part of God’s human existence in the person of Jesus. The fact that: Joseph and Mary, barely teenagers, were poor, and Mary gave birth to the Messiah in a dirty barn. The fact that: Herod the Great used his power to slaughter all the male children who were in Bethlehem under the age of two. The fact that: Shepherds slept on grassy hills, their nomadic home. The fact that: even in Jesus’ public  ministry, his cousin, John the Baptist, would be beheaded. The undeniable fact: that Jesus would experience rejection and eventually die a criminal’s death, with only a few, grieving women remaining at his side.

I am convicted this morning, to keep right on  celebrating, joyously, reverently, feverously, humming and testifying to the fact that God is on every scene of this world—this world of bleak midwinter—God arrives. I'm going to shout the fact that God arrives in the midst of my acquaintances' pain and suffering, doubt and disappointment, longing and loneliness to make a home with everyone living on earth, to be alongside us because of “great, eternal love.”  The gospel of John says to me that God did not stay removed from any of us or from our sufferings, but that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Immanuel, God with us, is here today to be my acquaintances' consolation. 

Father, God, I thank You that it is possible for me to celebrate this season as the most wonderful time of the year.  I call on Your Spirit to guide me in my demonstration of beauty, joy, and celebration by reaching out to those in bleak midwinter, doing my part, giving my all, sharing my heart.

Amen