A Season of Uncertainty
It’s two weeks before Christmas and I haven’t made a dent in my Christmas shopping list. Honestly, I don’t really feel like buying Christmas gifts this year and, for so many reasons that I don’t have time to explain, I feel like a lost child with the madness of the Christmas rush swirling all around me. I don’t feel merry or full of good cheer. I just feel frozen with uncertainty.
I’m trying to almost trick myself into experiencing the glee of the season. I turn on Christmas music, turn on the Christmas tree lights and even dress my toddler in red and green. Yet even with all this striving, it still doesn’t feel like Christmas.
With terror attacks, random acts of violence, racial tension across the globe and even my own personal challenges of this year, it's hard for me to dwell on the cheerful merriment of Christmas. How can I be certain that there will be another Christmas or that our world will be functioning by next year?
It’s so easy to be consumed and overwhelmed with life's uncertainties, but today I was reminded of another young woman who was probably half my age when she was thrown into a tumultuous storm of life and her name was Mary. As a young teenager with her family dependent on her to marry a good, hard-working man like Joseph to provide for their needs and keep them alive, it probably enraged her parents that she would become pregnant before marrying Joseph! It was not the plan they had prepared for her and most certainly was not the plan they had for their family’s survival. Yet, Mary was obedient to God even when it meant disappointing her family and friends, and propelling her into the greatest season of uncertainty in her life.
Most likely, there were several Jewish festivals happening during the time of Mary’s pregnancy and I wonder if she also felt bewildered standing in the middle of the bustling festivities around her wondering what was going to happen to her, her child and their future.
As you know, God changed Joseph’s opinion of Mary’s divine pregnancy and he decided to not disown her but take her as his wife and care for the baby. Joseph was not only convinced by the angel of the Lord that he had no need to fear God’s strange plan for their lives, but I believe he also saw a deep reassurance in Mary that calmed his quivering heart.
Out of dire and uncertain circumstances, this young couple became the earthly guardians of the Messiah who would change the world through a very different, strange plan that seemed completely contrary to all human logic. But then again, isn’t that exactly what God loves to do? He wants to confound the wisdom of this world with the miraculous and impossible. He wants to defeat hatred with love. He wants to provide abundance from nothingness. He wants to bring peace where there is great fear. And He wanted to give His Only Son to a world of sinners so they could crucify Him for their own sins to be forgiven. All logic is thrown out the window and all uncertainties provide the greatest platform for God’s miracles to be performed.
So, I’ve decided that God doesn’t need a “perfect” Christmas to show His love or reveal the beautiful gift of salvation for humanity; He just needs a surrendered soul willing to give their uncertain circumstances to a very certain God.
