Come Let us Worship, Day 19, December 19

It is sometimes remembered but often we forget how real it really is. I’m talking about tangible, palatable sadness.  The context of Christmas for many people around the world is a backdrop of sadness. Christmas was once filled with laughter and happy gatherings.  But this Christmas is anything but joyful.  Perhaps the loss of a spouse, a child, a friend is the ache that cuts through the Christmas happenings.  Perhaps it’s a person enduring a very unhappy, unfulfilled marriage.  Perhaps it’s a loss of job or hope of future security. 

In the 1960s, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles released a song entitled, The Tracks of my Tears.  Two stanzas went this way:

People say I'm the life of the party
'Cause I tell a joke or two
Although I might be laughing loud and hearty
Deep inside I'm blue

So take a good look at my face
You know my smile looks out of place
If you look closer it's easy to trace
The tracks of my tears

This year. as were other years, there will be many who seem to be laughing loud and hearty, but inside – deep inside it’s not that way.  Christmas is a sad time of year.  Must this be endured?  Is there any hope?  I don’t think that pat answers provide the solution.  Pretending that things are OK is not a balm in Gilead, either.   I can only pass on one solution that is wrapped up in these words: Don’t waste your tears. I get that from James, chapter 1:

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2–4, ESV)

Notice, “let steadfastness have its full effect.” When genuine faith crashes head first into various kinds of trials – and stays the course by trusting in the unseen hand of God, it produces endurance/steadfastness.  It is this patient endurance that will bring honing and shaping.  This trial is sanctifying, making us more like Christ.

As the Heidelberg Catechism so properly affirms: “He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.”   This trial, this pain, this loneliness is intended by God for our salvation.

Where is Christmas in that?  That’s why he came.  He came to “seek and to save the lost”

Father as we anticipate this Christmas, the loneliness, the pain, it is hard to keep a smile on our face. Yet for some reason you have ordained this for my salvation.  I pray that I will not waste this opportunity to grow in grace and in deeper knowledge of You.  Amen.