verse4today: "I am sending an angel before you to protect you on your journey and lead you safely to the place I have prepared for you" (Exodus 23:20).
Posted on 2012-02-10 via Twitter
The more I think about it, the more remarkable it becomes. My dad never missed a Christmas with his family. As a result, I enjoyed fifty-four Christmas Days with my father. Take a snap shot of each Christmas day in my life and you will find my dad (as well as my mom). He never missed one with me, nor I with him - until this year for my dad passed away on April 26, 2009. A fifty-four year streak came to an end. This past year's celebration of Christmas did not include snapshots of my dad. There are no Christmas 2009 pictures of my dad passing out Christmas gifts to his grandkids, devouring a meal faster than every one in the room, poking the rear-ends of his grandkids with his cane, or sitting quietly in a chair watching his family and smiling in such a way that spoke volumes.
Perhaps that explains the aching in my heart which began roughly six days before Christmas, my dad’s birthday, and lasted into the New Year. Perhaps that explains my fragile emotions which had me teetering near tears at unexpected moments throughout the Advent and Christmas seasons. Looking back, I was pretty much an emotional basket case. Of course, it didn't help that other realities added to my emotional roller coaster, such as the safe homecoming of a son from a year in Afghanistan, the birth and presence of my first grandchild, and the immenence of Debbie & me becoming empty nesters.
The loss of my father, accompanied by the depth of my emotions during this past holiday season, spoke to me on many levels. Suffice to say at this point: it reminded me that, while Christ is the reason for the season, Christmas, in America anyway, is by and large a time to celebrate the gift of family. I have to admit that the constant refrain of "Jesus is the reason for the season," didn't do much for me. Maybe its just me, but the joy which accompanies my celebration doesn't flow so much from the remembrance of Christ's birth, as it does from my cache of memories of Christmas past with those I love, and a corresponding hope for significant time with family during those Christmases yet to come.
And I am okay with that.
As I preacher, I have probably preached a sermon or two which suggested that the of the birth of the Messiah should be the primary mover and shaper of our hearts during the Advent-Christmas season. But the loss of my father caused me to realize that the celebration of Christmas has many layers, the thickest of which is memories celebrating Christmas with family. Now that my wife and I are are "empty nesters," as well as grandparents, we already look forward to Christmas 2010 when, by God's grace, we will gather one more time as a family to celebrate, not only Christ's birth, but our love for one another. By God’s grace, I can look back over my life and conclude that, because of the presence of family, "Christmas is a most wonderful time of the year."
So, I am done lamenting the commercialism of the season, the sappy and sentimental seasonal songs which speak of everything but Christ, and the sanitization of the humiliation of Jesus Christ. I will admit that "Christmas is a most wonderful time of the year," even for those without Christ. But I look forward to Holy Week when the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus hold the center space on the stage - and in my heart.