Joy to the World

We were talking at work about a friend whose very young grandchild is terminally ill and we were expressing sympathy for the family.  A comment was made that it was going to be tough to make christmas happy for the dying child's older sibling.  This made me stop and pause.
 

How many people do I know whose christmas is unhappy?  Many.  The recently widowed women doing this alone for the first time, a man whose wife is in hospice, another whose mother died this week, families who cannot travel and be together, families that can be together but hate it, families with children who are making terrible choices, a car accident that is eating up the gifts budget and more, the degenerative disease slowly shutting down a god-fearing man, the people who get depressed because they never see the sun.  And that is just among my circle, let alone a complete city bombed to rubble near Bethlehem. Tragedy and trouble is not suspended on December 1.
 

How do we make christmas happy for them? More bling and blow-up snowmen on the roof? Send an annual letter effectively saying “My life is better than yours”? Doesn't ring true does it?  The trouble is, we don't have the resources to fix their problems.

So maybe we just write them off.  Christmas happy is only for those whose lives are perfect, right?  The rest of you can just go away and not spoil our fun.  However, that will leave no one doing christmas happy, because I have never met a person whose life is perfect.

What did the Angel mean, then, when he said “I bring you good news of great joy, that will be for all the people”?  All people? Good guys and bad guys, people with different political opinions, different skin tones, different bank balances, different zip codes?

Yes, all people: because the news was “Jesus!”  The creator become man, the answer to sin, the fulfilment of prophecy, the ultimate prophet, priest and king, the God who has deigned to talk to us face to face.

So what?

Because joy is not in stuff, relationships or religion.  It is in a relationship with Jesus.  Nothing else is as important.  Joy is in reach for all of us hurting, grieving, struggling people because He was born.  He has promised and is able to meet all our needs (not wants) and He will never leave us.

‘For he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."  So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?"’ (Hebrews 13: 5-6 ESV)

Christmas is about Jesus.

Rejoice (be Christmas Happy) in that, and that alone.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" (Luke 2: 13-14 ESV)