A few thoughts on Christmas

It is 6:00 Christmas morning and I can't sleep.  I've been tossing for an hour.  I'm not anxious for gifts or even watching my children open presents.  My family is still probably sleeping 2 houses away from me right now.  And although I can't wait to get in the car and see them and watch my nephew squeal with delight once he realizes that Santa did in fact come last night, that's not why I can't sleep.

Every year, as I'm sure you do, I pray that Christmas will be "different" -that God will somehow reveal something new to me in a story I have heard dozens of times that I can probably recite verbatim from the gospel of Luke.  I've been caught up like everyone has in the busyness of the season- trying to decorate the house and get just the right presents for everyone, sending out cards, and still trying to find some semblance of time to prepare my heart and mind for the truth of Christmas.  But this year is different, because in the midst of the busyness and morning sickness and tiredness I am forced to face the bitter truth that next Christmas will be different than this one.  Next Christmas, I won't get to wake my son up and open his stocking and presents with him.  I won't get to give him Christmas cookies or watch him rip off ornaments and lights from the tree like I did this year. :o)  He won't be here next year; I have chosen to give him away and to live a life without him.

Turns out, friends, I have learned more about Christmas from this one little boy than a lifetime of candlelight services and carols.  I have felt the searing pain of thinking about losing him, and that truth has made Christmas more new and real and glorious than it has ever seemed before.

God gave His only Son.

It is truth that I live my life by.  Yet, is easy let the words wash over me and forget what they really mean.  I love the story of Christmas- light breaking forth from a star and angels singing praises and imagining the shepherds being afraid and finding Jesus in a manger...  but for the first time, I let my mind wander to what the Father was thinking and feeling days before the miracle happened.  I don't mean to be blasphemous, but do you think it was a decision He struggled over?  Do you think He was counting down the years and months and days until He was going to have to be in Heaven without His Son?  I imagine the conversation they had.

I imagine God saying, "I wish I was the one going.  It would be easier to go through a human life myself than watching you have to go through all the pain and suffering and rejection that you're about to have to go through."

And then Jesus would say, "No, I think it is the best way.  It is far greater sacrifice to give Your son than to give Your own life.  You have made them fathers and mothers so they would understand how much they love their children.  And once they realize how much You love me, your only Son, they will realize the sacrifice You are giving to them.  It's the only way they will truly understand how much You love them."

I can imagine the first Christmas being difficult for the Father.  I know that Jesus and God could communicate when he was on the earth, but it had to be agonizing for God to watch his Son experience cold and hunger and pain and rejection- all on the first night of his birth.  While the heavenly host were praising God for His sacrifice, do you think the angels comforted the Father by letting Him know He made the right decision?  Can you imagine His loneliness, Him looking to his right hand and feeling the void of His son's physical absence?  Do you think He wished that He could skip over years of watching Jesus roam the earth and just have him back in Heaven?

I know I'm humanizing God too much.  I know He understood what He was doing and that all He did was motivated by His love for us.  But for the first time this Christmas, I appreciate the sacrifice so much more than I ever have before.  I am amazed that God would love me that much to give His Son so I could live forever with Him.  That kind of love should change me, and this Christmas, I feel like it has.