Till Next Christmas

The wooden nutcracker soldiers have done their annual deployment. Time to put them away to wait for another tour of duty in December 2013. 

The Christmas ornaments, the twinkly lights, the artificial pine garlands and the faithful wreath that greeted guests to our home will soon be back in their boxes and stowed away for another season.

The little girl in me does not want this season to end.  I have so enjoyed the decorations, the baking, the shopping (though this year I really did not do much, in protest against the consumerism that has now almost completely engulfed the reason for the season), the family get-togethers, the special church services and the send-off of Christmas cards and waiting for replies.  Above all, I like the feeling of goodwill that Christmas brings me.  I’ve even said “Merry Christmas” to some neighbors I have considered generally grouchy.  The horrendous and unthinkable massacre at Newtown shocked and angered us. But through it all, families got together to celebrate Christ’s birthday.  Gifts were exchanged.  Christmas concerts were presented and attended.  And the story of the Babe born in the manger has once again been told and retold in songs and plays.  Long after the Beatles of Liverpool pronounced that "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. . . . We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity,” Christ’s birth was celebrated as it has always been.  (The atheist group that hoisted that anti-Christmas banner in Times Square is the big exception.  It must make them happy and probably significant, to pick a fight with those of us who believe in the Christ.)

I remember that many years ago, we experienced a time of utter desperation and hopelessness in the Philippines.  A crime wave was raging through the country.  There was political corruption that wouldn’t quit.  The average citizen was suffering from an economy that had put such a heavy burden on him.  The scene was very dark.  In mid-July one radio station decided to play Christmas music. I don’t remember the state of the country to have changed.  But somehow it didn’t feel so hopeless anymore.  It felt like this period was just a temporary setback.  Things would get better.  And we all managed to survive those terribly bleak days.

When hope is lost, all is lost.  Recalling this experience, I asked what brought the hope back.  In my believer’s heart, I was convinced that it was the remembrance of that birth in the manger of the only Son of God.  It gave us hope.

And now 2013 is upon us, a blank sheet waiting to be written on.  I’m still basking in the glow of the celebration we just had.  I was reminded (along with the rest of the world) of the birth of this Saviour who brings hope, light, salvation.  I hope I don’t lose that glow as 2013 gets written.  I hope I never lose it when the writings get dark, confusing and difficult to understand.  And when the writings fill with encouragement, success or good endings, I hope I remember that the Babe in the manger did not stay a Babe, and that nothing gets written without Him.