Immanuel

God With Us 

By Sarah Burgess

I tend to write a lot about the messiness of my life: the timeouts, the tantrums, the unfinished dishes, a dog who eats large pieces of furniture, the grading that is never finished, the husband who, when I must leave early for work, sends the kids to school dressed like extras for a Grapes of Wrath film shoot. This place of messiness is my current street address and zip code. I can't escape it, so I try to live there and laugh about it. Sometimes I cry, though mostly I laugh. Most days I am thankful.

The messiness of my life is no different during the Christmas season, though modern culture seems to set the bar a little higher. There is a Hallmark set of expectations that come with Christmas in the form of "Bing Crosby and chestnuts, on that darn open fire", and "What did that silly little elf do last night?," and "It might just take an act of Congress to get a picture, any picture, of my three kids standing together at the same time, let alone color coordinated, clean, and smiling for a Christmas card.” It’s a whole new level of mom guilt, and instead of celebrating the season, I often find myself striving for an ideal that never existed in the first place.

Sometimes the messiness of life is deeper than just blighted expectations. For those who are alone, this time of year can be lonelier. There are unrealized hopes, memories of better days, and loved ones who are no longer with us. There is failure and fear and the fact that sometimes doing all you can is not enough. There are students of mine, on this very cold night, who I know are without a warm home, who will receive very little or nothing at all for Christmas, whose deep pain at which I have only a glimpse.

It weighs me down, these expectations, this messiness. During this time of year, I tend to laugh less and cry more.

Why? Because I am not perfect. Because life can be messy and arbitrarily cruel.

And I want so very badly for just one month a year to create a version of the world where I can pretend that life is not messy. My own shortcomings and the world's failures, when set against the backdrop of our heightened set of expectations, are on more prominent display than the lopsided Christmas tree in my front window.

Then I think how skewed my perception can be. I am reminded of how sinful and selfish and First World-ish is this picture of Christmas I have manufactured.

Because Jesus came down at Christmas to us in a mess. He came to us in a messy world, much like the world we live in now. He was born among animals, in imperfect circumstances, to flawed parents. And he went on to live a scandalous, messy life. He healed people when it was forbidden to do so, spent time with those who were unclean, who were on the fringes of society, and who the religious establishment had deemed unworthy. He widened the boundaries and broke the rules and made

enemies. But he did all of it in love, for love, so that two thousand years later, we could experience the messy, scandalous love of His presence.

The joy of Christmas is God With Us, Immanuel, the promise that we are not left alone in this broken, messy world. God With Us is the neighbor who brings over a leaf blower for the yard ; the teacher who takes the time to write a note of praise to a struggling child; a phone call from a far away friend; the small army of church members who show up on the hottest day of the year to help unload the moving van; the husband who, without complaining, takes care of the morning routine when mom leaves early for work. God With Us is the hope of Christmas because even in the sometimes gritty reality of our circumstances, there are limbs of grace to hold us up, to remind us that this messy, finite world is not the end of the story. There is so much more.

It's Christmas Eve, the apex of all ridiculous and worthy holiday expectations. If you are like me, there have been and will be tears, forgotten casseroles, or a fifteen minute late arrival to the Christmas Eve Service in which your husband is preaching. With a child who is crying. Because she ripped her tights.

Let it go.

Let this Christmas season be a time that we anticipate the deliverance from the messiness that is our world, from the messiness of this life. Let us cling, despite ourselves, despite expectations, to the hope that is Immanuel.

God With Us.

Because life is messy, but we are not alone. This is joy.

Merry Christmas, friends