An Honest Christmas with an Understanding of Jesus
By Megan Raby
It feels maybe a bit dishonest to say “Merry Christmas” this 2020 holiday season. I find myself stuck in a place where I am so grateful to know Immanuel, to know God is with us, and a place where I’m so tired and weary and done with the pandemic, with the politics and with the loneliness that has officially crept over me. I’m tired of the mean discourse and the lack of empathy that has circulated in our news feeds. I, along with others I’m sure, have entered into a profound loneliness because the world is full of a sickness that has forced us to stay indoors and to avoid what we were created for: fellowship and community. Emotions vary from anxiety and anger to sadness, and it’s natural to want to ignore them. However, allowing myself to feel the inevitable anxiety of 2020 is actually one of the most loving things I can do for myself.
“Allowing myself to feel the inevitable anxiety of 2020 is actually one of the most loving things I can do for myself.”
For his book “The Orchid and the Dandelion: Why Some Children Struggle and How All Can Thrive” researcher W. Thomas Boyce asked California children to draw pictures after the 1989 earthquake in Loma Prieta, California. Boyce discovered that children who drew honest depictions of the earthquake and the devastation it left behind were healthier weeks after the earthquake, while those who drew happier pictures were more likely to come down with illnesses. Being honest and not covering the truth with rose-tinted images and a false sense of security helped the children stay healthy. I think this study is very telling and reassuring as a child of God in that we don’t have to hold our breath and pretend we’re breathing just fine--we can exhale and lay at the feet of Jesus. And as I’m typing this, I’m laughing, because I don’t want to lay at his feet, I want to be wrapped up in his arms and shielded. I want a hug.
Just as I’ve been thinking about my own experience of processing this difficult year, I’m thinking about how to help my kids with it as well. It means loving them by providing them with learning opportunities to sit with less pleasant emotions including anxiety, anger and sadness, normalizing the feelings and reminding them of the very human experience of Jesus. I think that is what Jesus is doing with me right now in this time of year when we celebrate the incarnation of God. Jesus knows how to love me so well because he has lived the life of a human and has experienced feelings of sadness, anger and worry just like me.
I remember as a child getting very concerned for Jesus before he was about to be crucified. I didn’t like that he seemed scared to die. He asked the Father if there was a way to remove his death by crucifixion because he didn’t want to experience all the physical pain and spiritual pain--he was worried. He was human. He was human, and Christmas is the great reminder of that truth coupled with the great reminder of the hope found in knowing him as he came to know us in our humanity.
So as I prepare for what will look like a different Christmas this 2020 year, I will look for Jesus sensitively walking with my family and myself, reminding me once again that he has come to bring us hope and to love us abundantly in the midst of our own humanity. If I want to cry Christmas morning, I will cry. If I want to laugh, I will laugh. I will feel. Jesus was humbly born a human and he is still present - walking with me through the heaviness that he knew himself. There is something so freeing in allowing ourselves to feel our own emotions, and it’s a message the entire world needs to hear--you don’t have to be well and happy to be with Jesus. He’ll take you as a beautiful mess of joy and sadness all wrapped up together.
