Christmas Is for You: The promise it offers is for caregivers, too
Christmas is too much for some people.
The magic, the surprises, the special celebrations—it all feels like it’s for someone else: Families with healthy children and grandchildren. Those who can afford lavish meals and expensive gifts or holiday cruises or get-togethers at the beach. Strong men and smiling women not facing terminal illness or job pressure or financial shortfall.
When life is hard, Christmas may seem only to shine a light on our sadness. Some caregivers, for example, can’t wait for December to get behind us. Their capacity for celebration has been spent; they’re happy just to survive. They’ll play a little Christmas music for the failing person in their care and try to satisfy themselves with memories of happier holidays. Christmas was for then, not now.
But Scripture sees Christmas beyond all the trappings we’ve wrapped around it. The word Christmas wasn’t even known to those who first lived out the stories we tell at Christmastime. The prophets who foretold a Savior had no notion of our contemporary celebrations. But they did know something about his coming we want to emphasize in the Monday Meditations this year: Christmas is for everyone. No matter your situation or stress or sorrow, Christmas is for you.
We see this in the passage from Zechariah we’re reading today. Delivered to the weary Jewish exiles returning from Babylon to their beloved Jerusalem and its temple in ruins, Zechariah’s prophecy offers hope. He tells them victory is ahead of them. And with images and allusions especially meaningful to us, he foretells a coming king who would bring redemption and peace.
That Savior rode a donkey into Jerusalem, just before his crucifixion, as foretold by the prophet (9:9). That ride was a humble coronation, with everyday people on a dusty road praising him as he came. Just as humble—and just as remarkable—was his birth among the animals, with a legion of angels illuminating the black sky outside Bethlehem. Everything about his life showed how he identifies with the simple and the suffering, and yet he is also God, not like us at all. He was for everyone, and so everyone can remember his birth with joy—and hope.
Everyone. Even those weary with the workings of the world. Everyone, even you, can know he offers something better than heartache we’re experiencing today.
And so, even if the glitter or glamour of the holiday is dulled by the challenges we’re facing, we still have reason to celebrate. “How great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty,” Zechariah affirms about our Lord. Our opportunity is to seek and savor that beauty today.
Read: Zechariah 9:9-17
Pray: “Oh, Lord, help me to look beyond celebration as well as sadness surrounding our holiday to see the hope offered to me by the birth of Jesus.”
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