Christmas Always Comes in the Dark

How to find Christmas when you're not really feeling it.

Photo by Jonathan Chng on Unsplash

Christmas has snuck up on me this year. I don’t have the same sense of anticipation I usually do. I mostly have an awareness that I’m behind, not quite ready, not quite feeling it. I’ve played in a Christmas concert, been to a carol service, bought presents, written cards, put up our tree, and even though I’ve enjoyed all these things, I’m still not really in the festive mood.

Perhaps it feel hard to celebrate when the world is in such a mess. I’m broken-hearted over the war in Israel/Gaza. I’m devastated by how many children have lost their lives, how the hospitals have run out of supplies and the people have run out of food and shelter. I’m disgusted at the way politicians in my own country scapegoat refugees and the poor to cover up systemic injustices of their own making. I’m worried about climate change and the future of women and girls in Afghanistan. Sometimes I wonder if the birth of Jesus has made any difference at all.

But I was reminded that Christmas always comes in the dark. Of course, in the northern hemisphere, it is quite literally dark at this time of year. But Christmas has always come in the middle of our collective tragedies and trauma. It came to the trenches of the 1st World War. It came during every year of the 2^nd World War. It came during the Covid lockdown. It comes amidst our personal grief and suffering.

Perhaps this is what it means for us to experience the birth of Jesus each year. Perhaps we find the Christ-child reborn in our efforts to forgive and to let go of bitterness, in the ways we include strangers and the lonely. Perhaps we find him in the ways we work together to alleviate poverty, to support children, give to foodbanks and charities. Perhaps he is found in the way we cast our votes on behalf of our vulnerable neighbours and our planet. Perhaps he is birthed in the way we protest and cry out for peace and the end of war.

The Wise Men followed a small point of light to find their way to the Saviour and I think that’s how we find him too. We decorate our trees with lights and sparkles to remind ourselves that sadness doesn’t cancel out joy. We choose to celebrate while we can, holding onto delight as the energy that sustains us. And we light candles to remind us that one small point of light can make all the difference in the dark.