The First Christmas

On December 20^th, 2017, my father got diagnosed with brain cancer. They scheduled him for immediate surgery on December 23^rd. On December 24^th, I was scheduled to lead two of my congregation’s four Christmas Eve services as well as the Christmas Day service. On top of that, my dad was 1,000 miles away from us, heading into a surgery which would be life-altering. I was overwhelmed. Thankfully, his surgery got postponed to December 26^th and my congregation graciously allowed me to leave to be with him. Instead of preparing to preach to a full church, I packed my family into our vehicle and drove across six states. Last year, I had my last Christmas with my dad.

Christmas 2017, all of us gathered together with Dad

My whole family piled into my brother’s house for Christmas Eve. I had brought a bulletin of the service I was supposed to be leading that evening in New York, and my 8-year-old nephew did all the readings. We sang the Christmas carols, we cried, we exchanged gifts, and we cried some more. My dad tried to tell us all how much he loved us, but the hug and the passionate look in his eyes said much more than words ever could. I will never forget that Christmas, the last Christmas.

My dad put up a valiant fight with an infection and growing tumor, still finding joy in his family. After months in the ICU and then hospice in home, my father died on March 20th. This year, we will celebrate the first Christmas without my father. It will be emotional, painful, tear-full. It will be a hard day, but a day still to celebrate. A day still to gather around gifts and food, family and friends. A day still to sing and pray, laugh and cry.

I am sure I am not alone in having a first Christmas this year. Maybe it’s yours, too. The first Christmas without Grandma. The first Christmas with a new child. The first Christmas in a new home. The first Christmas without a job. The first Christmas after the divorce. Pain and heartache mixed with joy and happiness await many of us during the holidays. It can make the excitement of Christmas dreadful. We get caught in a confusing world of joy and pain, an we struggle to sort out our feelings.

Thinking back to the first Christmas, though, it makes sense. After all, the first Christmas came as a complete shock to everyone. Shepherds in the field, a crowded city, first-time parents forced to travel late in pregnancy. The first Christmas was, in so many ways, not pleasant. Those shepherds had left their families at home and were sleeping on rocky soil with smelly sheep surrounding them. Mary and Joseph couldn’t find a comfortable place to spend the night. But on that night, heaven touched earth. On that night, angels bent low with sweet songs. On that night, a baby was brought into the world with the agonizing joy of a first time mother. The first Christmas was joy coming to a broken, chaotic, lost, and dying world. On that night, God was born in a barn and embraced humanity more fully than we could ever comprehend. As Phillips Brooks wrote, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.” 

All the years… Each Christmas is truly the First Christmas, filled with the tension between living in the moment and awaiting eternity. It is a day where we always do the same thing, sing the same songs, hear the same readings. But each year we experience them in a new way, with a new depth and richness. Each year brings new experiences, new sadness, new hope, new longings. We gather together with those closest to us in the agonizing joy of this life which God has given us, awaiting the ultimate present of eternal life in God’s presence. We embrace the pain and the joy and hold them in tension, as a new mother embraces her baby through the pains of childbirth.

There will be a day with no more pain, no more tension. Christmas will come to fulfillment in that Last Day, but not before. Until then, let us celebrate the First Christmas every year, embracing the hope that comes from trusting in the Immanuel, God-with-us, the God who loved us first and promises to fill us with love, joy, and peace forever.