tidings of comfort and joy

I enjoy receiving Christmas letters from family and friends. It is fun to catch up on what is going on in everyone’s families. And the letters that we receive are always careful to say that they are well of aware of God’s blessings in their lives. However, I always think of this passage (which pokes a little fun at these letters- even as she gently chides her readers for trying to keep impossibly busy schedules) in one of my favorite books “Living More with Less” by Doris Janzen Longacre:

“Then one can write a Christmas letter that tops them all: “Jeffrey goes out for sports, took the lead in the class play, went backpacking, is first-chair trombone, and never dawdles a moment. We insist that he be precocious and have as much fun as every one else is having. Frankly, you are lucky to know his parents as old college friends.

I wait for the one that reads, “We were pleased to get Lisa toilet-trained the day before kindergarten opened” or “Matt is doing better in school. This year he went down second in the spelling bee.”

One of our former pastors said, “It is a lot easier to mourn with those who mourn, than to rejoice with those who rejoice.” We can get cynical about those families who seem to have it all together. You and I both know though, that nobody has it all together.

Tuesday night as we sang “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” which includes the words:
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Let your heart be right
From now on our troubles will be out of sight….
I thought of my widow friend out in the audience. This will be her first Christmas without her husband of 60+ years. Her troubles are not out of sight.

I received a note yesterday that one of my college friends has breast cancer. Her troubles are not out of sight.

Another friend has a son in jail. Though she has learned to be thankful when he is in jail, because then she knows where he is, her troubles are not out of sight.

You know that baby born in a manger? When He grew to be a man, He stood up one day and read these words from Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Jesus sat down and said that the Scripture was fulfilled in the hearing of those who listened.

We may not be able to send out a letter to our friends filled with excitement and accomplishments. We may have hearts filled with grief, despair and discouragement.
But that Baby in the manger came to give good news to the poor, whether we are financially poor or bereft of some of blessings we see in others.
He came to give us freedom, whether we are behind steel bars, or captured by prisons or our own making.
He came to restore our sight, whether our eyes are blind or we are blinded by fear or greed or idolatry or ….any number of things.
He came to release us from the oppression of our sins.

Do cheery Christmas songs stick in your throat because your heart aches?
Is it difficult for you to rejoice when good things happen to other people?
We have One who knows all about heartache and has come to heal the brokenhearted.
(Isaiah 61:1).
He brings us tidings of comfort and joy.
~~~~~~~
And happy birthday to DOD!!! Everybody sing!