Complicated Hope

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  All things were created through Him and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.  In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  That light shines in the darkness and yet the darkness did not overcome it. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. John 1:1-5, 14

As schools and universities head into the holiday break, the thing most looked forward to is not gifts or food, it’s rest.  To see family, maybe.  To be home – sometimes.  But mostly they are weary – their minds have absorbed so much information, their hearts have endured elation and heartbreaks and their bodies have been pushed to the limits from late night studies, early morning classes, athletic practices and games.  They just want to go home and rest.

While for some people, the word home conjure warmth and safety, it is not a cozy word for everyone.   Home is heartache and brokenness and struggle. While for the majority of the population, home is a mix of the two extremes. HOME means people and people are messy and complicated.  

The Holidays always meant people coming Home.  Whether it was my parents’ house,  my grandparents, my aunts – the location didn’t matter was much as the togetherness. As time passed, so did relatives and my husband and I became the place people gathered. 

The first years of hosting Holiday gatherings, I really worked hard at making memory-worthy moments.  I began on the Fourth of July, opening my Southern Living Christmas edition and making notes in the planning pages at the back. The perfect tree decor, a dinner menu with new treats. Home decor, wrapped packages, everything coordinating into this ideal of a Home for the Holidays.   It was exhausting work!  But, I told myself, I am doing it for my kids to have good memories.  

Truth is – my kids didn’t care.  I cared.  I had an unrealistic expectation created by too many images and holiday movies. No one remembers those near-perfect holidays.  It’s the crazy ones we remember and laugh about!  

The Christmas Eve dinner that my cousin came to the table with her bangs cut an angle from 1/2 inch to 3 inches – to this day, I don’t remember why I reached down, grabbed her hair and cut it.  I was 10 years old and knew better!    We remember the Holiday my aunt ended up in the emergency room with a migraine headache because her brother had made a derogatory remark about Tom Landry, at that time the Head Coach – and nearly sainted royalty – of the Dallas Cowboys.    There’s the Christmas Eve my great-grandma went to be with Jesus.  Christmas dinner was just quiet that year without my tiny Little Grandma’s presence at the table.

When reminiscing about memorable Christmas gatherings, I always remember one particular dinner. We were at my in-law’s house in Oklahoma when the oldest grandchildren were 7-11 years old and my niece a baby.  My mother-in-law always sets a beautiful table. She is on the few people in American that has a full place settings of china, silverware and crystal – and uses them. It is her conviction that she is passing this on to her grandchildren in an age when people have forgot how to sit in a formal table.  Which is true – my sister-in-love and I have opted for stoneware, paper plates and disposable cups years ago.    A Beach Family Holiday is a two-meal day of breakfast and then a dinner served an hour past the slated time.  My sister-in-love and I know this and plan accordingly with snacks served about halfway through the afternoon to ward off starvation.

This particular Christmas meal was served later than the expected hour delay.  By the time we sat down at the table, it was mayhem.   My niece had been put down to nap – she was crying and not waiting on any more Holiday nonsense.   My nephew was upset at being called to Christmas dinner because he had not seen Christmas lunch and no, the snack plates did not count as a meal.  My son was upset because he had been put at the “add on” table – you know where put scoot the card table next to the dining to extend the seating. It’s a step-up from the Children’s table but he did not see it that way and felt he was too old to be at the add-on. My daughter’s big blue eyes brimmed with tears because if her brother was old enough for the big table, so was she.   The dad’s were fussing at the children for complaining and not seeing the logic of two meals and an extended table.  Grandma was about to rise from her seat to calm the grandchildren when grandpa snap her to “sit down.”   Quite literally in the middle of the chaos sat my sister-in-love and myself. Opposite each other in the middle seats, our spouses and their parents on one side of us and our crying children on the other. We locked eyes.  Smiles began to form. Then a giggle erupted to full on laughter.

It was not helpful. Our spouses frowned. Our mother-in-law sighed. The kids cried more. 

But Grandpa smiled.  Slowly, the laughter spread and composure regained. Grandpa’s prayer reminded us why we were together:  to honor our Savior, born as a baby, raised as a carpenter, destined to die a death of shame all to restore us to relationship with God. 

Between the craziness of finals, the longing for home, the beauty of the decorations and the fiction of a perfect holiday we can create a scenario that doesn’t reflect reality.  

John 1:14 reads:

“The Word, Jesus, became flesh and dwelt among us.”

FLESH – became one of us.  Messy, complicated humans.

DWELT –  To move in.  To be among us.  

To be HOME.

That’s Christmas – Home with Father God. 

Jesus is like a beautiful Christmas box – that kind that you pay to have wrapped with expensive, heavy, weighty paper, tied with silken ribbons and topped with a big beautiful velvet bow.  Father God gives you this box.    It’s surprisingly light and heavy all at the same time.  It almost floats, but in your hands you feel the heft of its mass.   

“It’s my gift to you,” God says.

“Thank you,” you reply.   And you hold the box.  You know it’s yours.   You know it’s valuable.  

Until you choose to open this box, it’s just a present.

You must choose to lift the lid and look inside at the precious gift – life.  From a tiny baby to a man on cross to an empty tomb and life with Christ in eternity, all are contained in this box.

Choice turns that box from a present into a Gift.  

The gift of eternal life.

Father God, you have given us a beautiful present. There are so many who haven’t yet opened the box and accepted the gift of our son Jesus.  I pray that your Holy Spirit move in them today.  That they find a Home for Christmas and Eternity.