Tonight at Table of Grace, we held our annual Blue Christmas
service. It’s something that we’ve done every year since we started the church,
and even though it is always attended by somewhere between 1 and 8 people, I
believe it is one of the most important services that we do. I borrowed a new
name for the service this year from an Episcopalian colleague, who calls her
Blue Christmas service “When Christmas Hurts”. Sometimes, it’s not just that
folks are a little extra down or lonely during the Christmas season, sometimes Christmas,
and the reminders of what we no longer have, hurts, badly.
I seem to be reminded of this harsh reality even more this
year than in years past. I think it’s because our youngest, Morgan, is an 11
year old sixth grader, just like I was when my world came crashing down around
me. It was on this night 32 years ago, that I went to bed, a little bummed that
I wouldn’t be enjoying the day before Christmas break celebrations at school
the next day, due to the fact that I had chicken pox. Little did I know that
chicken pox would be the least of my heartbreaks that Christmas. When I woke up
the next morning, I woke with a terrible headache. I remember walking into the
kitchen in my underwear and t-shirt that I had slept in, and feeling a little
awkward when I saw that our kitchen was full of people. They all sat around the table as if they had been there for hours while I slept.
I don’t remember any of the words, just that it was too
light in the kitchen, it hurt my head. And there were too many people, and I
was in my underwear. And they said he was gone. My brother. My hero. Gone. Something
about Christmas shopping and dark and windy roads, and sleeping and driving, or
not, and a wreck, and gone. 21 years old and gone. In my young mind, and with
his wild nature, it seemed somehow inevitable that it would be a car wreck, someday.
But now? This soon and this close to Christmas?
It wasn’t my first taste of death. I believe it was in the
spring of that same year when I awoke to the news that one of my best friends
had died of some fluke illness, and just like that, she was gone. Funny, I remember
something about underwear and a headache that day, too. The difference, of
course, is that Kendra’s house was the one that had too many people in the
kitchen for a weekday morning, and her sister
was asking “what happened” and “how” and “why so soon”.
Even though it wasn’t my first experience with death, it was
my first experience with hating Christmas. I carried that with me for a couple
of decades. I don’t remember anything that I got for Christmas that year,
except the thing that made me hate it. It was a little ceramic thing, a
knick-knack. They told me that he bought it for me. I never really understood
the story, and I had questions. Did he buy it on a previous shopping trip? What
21 year old man buys his kid sister a gift in advance? Where had he kept it?
Had he wrapped it himself? Did he buy it that night? Did someone find it in the
wrecked car? If so, how did they know he bought it for me? So many questions,
though none that I would ask. Instead, I would just let them rumble around
inside me, fueling my anger and my newfound dislike of Christmas. Years later,
I would find a Christmas gift, still wrapped, in a file cabinet at my grandparents’
house, with a tag that said: To Grandpa From Roger. I wondered if he had the
same questions. I didn’t ask.
I’m not sure when I got over hating Christmas. As I grew
into an adult, I had all sorts of excuses. I owned a retail store, and worked
ridiculous hours through the Christmas season, right up to Christmas Eve.
Somewhere along the line, I had to get away to pick up gifts for everyone else
for multiple family celebrations that would take place, often beginning that
very night. People were demanding, rude, and thankless; and deep down I knew
that even with a successful Christmas, we’d be right back in the red within a
couple of months, pinning our hopes to the next Black Friday to Christmas Eve
cycle. Maybe it was when I got out of the jewelry business, maybe it was when
the joy of seeing my kids excited on Christmas morning became greater than the
pain of dashed hopes and shattered dreams. Maybe it was when I realized that
Christmas was about new birth, and sixty-fifth chances, and God breaking into
the harsh reality of my life to say “I am here, will you stop being so damn
stubborn and walk with me?” And yes, I think God would say damn, among other
things that we’ve been taught not to say out loud.
Whenever it happened, I bet I wasn’t ready. I wouldn’t have
made the choice myself to move forward and to begin to see the beauty of the
season again. Thankfully, God doesn’t usually ask if we’re ready. In our Blue
Christmas service tonight, I read an adaptation of a passage from Madeleine L’Engle’s
“First Coming”. I’d like to share it with you.
“God did not wait until the world was ready, till the
nations were at peace. God came when the heavens were unsteady and prisoners
cried for release. God did not wait for the perfect time. God came when the
need was deep and great. God dined with sinners in all their grime. God did not
wait until the hearts were pure. In JOY
God came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt. To a world of anguish and
shame. God came in JOY, and his light never goes out. God came to a world which
did not mesh; to heal its ill, and shield its scorn. In the mystery of the Word made flesh, the
maker of the stars were born. We cannot wait until the world is whole, to raise
our songs with joyful voice, to share our grief, to touch our pain. God came in
grace, with love. Rejoice!”
God knows that right now our need is deep and great, that we
live in a world of anguish and shame, and that we still don’t mesh. Thank God
it doesn’t matter! God breaks in anyway. God shines light in all the dark
places of our hearts, our souls, our world; and as hard as the darkness tries
to fend off the light, it can’t. John 1:5 tells us that “The light shines in
the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” Thank. You. Jesus. Thank
you for coming into this broken world and especially into this broken heart.
Thank you for your assurance that joy comes in the morning.
Tonight also happens to be the Winter Solstice, the longest
night of the year. As part of our Blue Christmas service, we share a “Blessing
for the Longest Night”, which ends with these words: “So when this blessing
comes, take its hand. Get up. Set out on the road you cannot see. This is the
night when you can trust that any direction you go, you will be walking toward
the dawn.”
And so I’ll walk. I’ll walk blindly forward in the darkness
of a world filled with love and hate, violence and peace, justice and grave
injustice. I’ll walk in trust, knowing that even as God’s light shines in the
darkness of my own heart, it does so in the hearts of billions of others as
well. And I’ll believe that there will be a dawn. I hope that you’ll believe
with me.
We closed our service tonight with this song from the Indigo
Girls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhSLK_iMLaw
Listen, sing, watch, and believe. There’s still our joy. Christmas
Blessings to you, my friends. May you experience anew the magic of God born
into our midst; even when Christmas hurts.