I tried to feel festive. I tried to get into the “Christmas Spirit.” I went to Christmas parties. I helped out with the kids Christmas program. I wore red and green. I went to a concert. I participated in gift exchanges. I put up Christmas decorations. I went to look at Christmas light displays. I bought and wrapped gifts. I listened to Christmas music.
But it didn’t work. For whatever reason, I didn’t feel like celebrating this year. I went through the motions. I did all the “right things.” But underneath an appearance of Christmas joy, I felt gloomy. And I couldn’t shake it – no matter how hard I tried.
To be honest, I found that I almost couldn’t even stand Christmas music this year. It was too joyful. “Joy to the world, the Lord has come” rang hollow. I didn’t feel “joyful and triumphant.” I wasn’t sleeping in “heavenly peace.”
I couldn’t get my heart to feel what my head said it should feel. I honestly just wanted the holidays to be over. The lights, the decorations, the parties, and the thousand times I had to say “Merry Christmas” just played the part of a constant reminder that life has been hard and I didn’t feel like celebrating. More than once I wished I could leave the party and just go home early.
A few days before Christmas, I was crying out to God. Why can’t I feel anything? I keep crying out to you, but I don’t feel any closer. I can’t shake the gloom that has followed me throughout the year. I thought celebrating Christmas would make it go away…but it hasn’t. What is wrong with me? God, I’m going to break if I go any longer without feeling the joy of knowing you are with me. I’m going to collapse if I’m left to bear the weight of this year any longer.
And in that moment I felt a gentle nudge in my spirit. A prompting to recall a word that is popular at Christmas. A name. Emmanuel. God with us.
As the name washed over my spirit, I recalled an insightful scene in The Chosen. One of characters suggests that perhaps Jesus didn’t wait to come until we were holy. He didn’t wait to come until we could clean ourselves up and be ready for him. He came because he knew that we couldn’t be holy, we couldn’t be ready, without him.
He came into our mess. Like, all the way into the filth of a first century stable. As messy as it could get. And then he went even further and died in the most humiliating way possible.
Emmanuel. God with us in the mess of a stable. God with us in the humiliation of the cross. God with us when we needed him the most desperately.
And God with me in the mess of my gloomy emotions, in the mess of my melancholy, in the mess of my unraveling. Emmanuel. God with me. In the doubts and the fears of the past year and the anxieties of the coming year.
Maybe he’s not waiting for me to feel whole. Maybe he’s not waiting for me to feel like I have all the pieces put together. Maybe he’s already here, with me in the heartache and the gloom. He’s not waiting for me to feel joyful on my own before coming to me. He comes to me because he knows that without him I can’t ever feel real, lasting joy.
Emmanuel. God with us.