“When the candle is burning, who looks at the wick? When the candle is out, who needs it? But the world without light is wasteland and chaos, and a life without sacrifice is abomination.” Annie Dillard
Midlife has crept up on me. One of the gifts of aging, as I see it, is the familiarity in the cyclical nature of our seasons and years. “But miles pass, years climb up your shoulders,” writes Leif Enger. And before we know it, we find nearly our fortieth Christmas season upon us, and there’s a comfort in that. These journeys around the sun have been filled with joy and beauty, with suffering and sorrow. And somehow on this long road, I am learning to hold space for both the joy and the sorrow in the same breath.
For many of us, it may feel like a challenge to “repeat the sounding joy.” Perhaps you have known deep loss. In my experience, those of us who have lived and worked overseas are more keenly aware of grief and loss than our friends and family who have stayed in a home country. And for the compounding years of living far from family and home culture, these echoes of sorrow can mirror expanding ripples on a still lake.
For many years while living overseas, this sense of loss was most profound for our family over the Christmas holidays, when we were missing family gatherings and fundamental seasonal affiliations. Setting up the Christmas tree while sweat drips down your back? IYKYK. Listening to Let It Snow on repeat at the local shops while the summer solstice brazenly approaches. Remembering painfully that your whole family is gathering while you make the best of living thousands of miles away. This is not even to speak of those loved ones whom we have lost in years overseas—the ache deepens this time of year. Every one of those miles weighs more heavily.
How is it that this season of incarnation can be one of the hardest? How can the joyous arrival of the long-expected Savior carry echoes of sorrow? Maybe it’s because, even in the joy of the season, there is this anticipation of loss. We know the mother who cradles her Christ-child is the one who will weep at the foot of the cross. We know in the gift of sending his Son to the world, the Father is sacrificing himself. In the joy of new life, there is a quiet awareness of coming death, of impending sacrifice.
Perhaps we lose something when we fail to see the paradox of the season. Perhaps, in the deep breath of both joy and sorrow, we are most fully anticipating the kingdom. In other words, if your echoes of sorrow intensify this time of year, you are not alone.
If this season carries echoes of joy and grief, be at peace. We can only appreciate the striking beauty of the light when we acknowledge the reality of our darkness. Zechariah says something quite similar when prophesying over newborn John:
You will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.
Luke 1:76–79 (NIV)
Jesus, the rising sun. In these nearly forty Christmas seasons, I am so deeply grateful for the annual reminder of his presence breaking into whatever darkness we might be experiencing. Echoes of grief and echoes of joy. He is coming, to shine his light on us, to guide our feet into the path of peace.
Come, Lord Jesus!
How are you experiencing echoes of grief and joy this season?
