Christmas is about tension
Have you ever had a perfect Christmas as an adult? I mean a Christmas where everything in your life was perfect? Think about your job, family, money, faith, and mental health. Has there ever been a holiday season when they were all running at 10?
Just because life may be different this year doesn’t mean it can’t be a good Christmas. Many times as adults we lose the joy of this season because there’s so much going wrong.
Christmas is often both joy and pain together in the same room. The joy we experience in life comes from how well we navigate tension in life. Take Mary and Joseph, for example.
Since she got pregnant outside of marriage, Joseph could’ve had Mary killed on charges of adultery. In fact, he did think about divorcing her.
Joseph, to whom [Mary] was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly. (Matthew 1:19, NLT)
The circumstances around the birth of the Savior we celebrate at Christmas were full of tension. This advent season, try sitting for a minute with the tension in your life. Coming into a new life requires us to face massive tension. That’s why it’s so hard to face change.
As the season approaches, it’s okay to feel joy for future possibilities. It’s also okay to feel uncertainty or a sense of loss. After all, change requires death and not all deaths are welcome. Some years, Christmas is a mixture of joy and pain together in the same room.