Weights and Measures

 What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen
 the burden God has laid on the human race. He has

made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set
eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom
what God has done from beginning to end…I know
that everything God does will endure forever; nothing
can be added to it and nothing taken from it.
(Ecclesiastes 3:9-11, 14b)

One of the things many of us enjoy during this season is watching Christmas movies. Some of the funniest ones are those that feature full-blown Christmas disasters. You know the kind–someone wants to have the “perfect Christmas” and goes to insane lengths to plan every detail and decorate every inch of the house before the extended family arrive. Everything is perfect–until the people actually arrive. Cue a series of disastrous events that threaten to ruin the celebration and leave the family in emotional shambles. Throw in a burned Christmas dinner and a destroyed Christmas tree, and there you have one spectacular plotline.

We laugh because these movies are hilarious and outrageous, but also because we see the truth in them. We understand the characters’ over-the-top desire to make the Christmas season meaningful because the weight of our own expectations for the season can be heavy, even crushing. Maybe you desperately want to spend meaningful time with family and friends, but your time together is thwarted by a predictable angry outburst. Or maybe, just once, you don’t want to feel like the black sheep at the table, but you leave feeling as though the people whho are supposed to know you better than anyone do not know you at all. We decorate, shop, plan, cook, clean, and party in a quest for meaning and connection. But too often we end up disappointed despite all our hard work. What does it matter? we wonder. We were looking for meaning and affection, but we get futility and isolation.

All of us have our hands full of something as we walk into this season–guilt, desire, loneliness, discontent, sadness, anticipation. Holiday advertising promises us plenty–plenty of fun surrounded by plenty of food and presents and friends; plenty of meaning packed into a picture-perfect display. But in all this plenty, we are left wanting. Why? Because we want something from the season that it cannot give. We want something from our family, friends, bank accounts, and churches that they cannot give–because what our hearts desire is simply more of Jesus.

We want God, plain and simple. Theologian C. S. Lewis wrote, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” Our hearts, having been made by God, deeply desire to be in relationship with our Creator. WE long for God’s presence, but often we mistake this longing as a desire for things that we can see and taste and touch. We put our hope in things other than God, which causes us toe sin. But the miracle of Christmas is that Jesus comes to be with us, turning our faces away from our empty desires and toward him. He says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). He tells us it’s okay, reminding us, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). He sees our sin; he knows our weaknesses and shortcomings, but he says, “That’s why I came. I came to heal. I am the Good Doctor. Let me take care of you.”

That is the real promise of Christmas–“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10) Glory to God in the highest!

Prayer Focus
Acknowledge that the desire of your heart is to be with God alone. Ask God to give you grace and help you feel God’s love so that you can give grace to others this season.

From Rob Renfroe and Ed Robb, The Wonder of Christmas: Devotions for the Season