The Gift in the Darkness

                                              

                                    Merry Christmas from the Schlimpert's  

                                                                                   

While I sit here with tree lighting my little world, with the gloom outside, but inside held in the cocoon of my abundance, with little dog snoozing on my couch and hot coffee warming my belly, and fire blazing strongly, the gloom of the world seems away for the moment.  The family I’ve been blessed with smiles beautifully from the Christmas cards ready to send.  But the world still encroaches upon even this blessed world – I’m praying for worries I know lie behind those smiling faces of my loved ones.  And deep also in my belly is the anxiety of knowing the plight of so many people suffering outside (am I doing your will, Lord?), of meeting the small but many obligations of my day before the energy runs out (when am I going to get those cards out?), of the thousand ways we all “suffer brave” in the words of my Advent devotional this morning.  And the gloom creeps inside as I read the reason for the small but deeply buried inside angst that must be fought even in the midst of blessings.  Anne Voskamp in her Advent devotional The Greatest Gift – Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas has the words to catch that small but deep buried hole within: 

   

 No one knows how your heart quakes a bit inside.  At how headlines hit too close, how in the blink on an ordinary day, it could be one you love bloodied by a crash or getting chemo pumped through the veins…The economy crumbles away under your feet.  People fail. Dreams fail.  You feel like you fail.  Some days it’s hard not to panic and to weep for all that isn’t.  For all that you aren’t…But in the barrenness of winter we are offered a gift we must always carry close:  rejoicing in the Lord happens while we still struggle in the now…As the cold can move you deeper toward the fire, struggling can move you deeper toward God, who warms you with joy.  Struggling can deepen joy.  Even though.  Even now.  And even though (as Habakkuk reminds us) there are days when the fig trees have no blossoms and the Christmas tree aches a bit empty, and there seem to be no struggle-free days, even though I fail, even though so much fails – even now I will rejoice in the Lord.  The secret of joy is always a matter of focus:  a resolute focusing on the Father, not on the fears.  All fear is but the notion that God’s love ends.  When does He ever end?  When you can’t touch bottom is when you touch the depths of God…I can be joyful in the God of my salvation.  Re-joys, re-joice.  Hasn’t He already unequivocally earned trust?  You can take your hands off your life – you don’t have to try to save it.  Behold Him everywhere, and be held.  Though the fig tree does not blossom – His love always does.  Count, recount gifts: rejoice, re-joys.  A song of thanks steadies everything…Brilliant people don’t deny the dark; they are the ones who never stop looking for His light in everything.

 I read those words and the angst that often rises within me is named – it is the way of the world.  “In this world there will be trouble, but rejoice, I have overcome the world.”  And the lights of the tree – the tree that is here because we are celebrating the tree that the baby came to save us on – the baby the world celebrates even if they don’t know Him. 

And the gloom once again retreats.  The light shines in the darkness.  It shines into the barrenness of my soul that has begun once again to focus on the world around me, and feel the need of being saved – and I do rejoice.  I am able find re-joys in the blessings and chase away the to-dos and the worries, and just walk into the day held.  Like a psalm that begins with David’s cries for help and ends with the realization of God with him, God with us, Emmanuel, holds my heart for a minute this morning before I start the scramble back into the world.  And once again Anne Voskamp’s words describes the Christmas gift I am unwrapping once more this morning – a gift that never stops giving any morning, any moment, if I but take time to sit down and unwrap it: 

 Forsake the fairy tales for the story that is history:  this king from backwater Bethlehem is the true and the real once and still coming King – the King of humanity’s memory. There is your winter wonderland set up on the cosmic stage:  the Son sent in through the fallen kingdom, born into a barn to wrest the forces from the pit and woo the world back to life.  And on Calvary, evil corners the Son, iron spikes the King to the tree – only to have Light shatter the dark and the King fling off the rotting grave clothes and rise.  The unexpected Bethlehem King is the one coming again to rule the earth and make all the sad things untrue.  And like the angels singing the night that humanity witnesses the King-God inhale earth air into His lungs you can feel it:  “joy beyond the walls of the world.”  And the very trees of the world are going to dance and clap their hands.  The King is coming, and the new Kingdom is stirring. And stirring in you.  When the King rules your world, you cease to rule or worry.  All worry dethrones God.  For we can remember – there is a King born in Bethlehem and on the throne – and you can breathe.  There are lights on Christmas trees blinking in living rooms in cities and small towns – and the lights on all the trees dance.

If we but seek hard to remember the lights are all for the coming King, then the darkness recedes again and we remember we walk in the light.

Joy to the world.  The Lord is come!!!  Let earth receive her King.  Let every heart prepares Him room.  And heaven and earth rejoice.

May you hear the words of the carols anew this year.  Joy to your world. 

The Gift in the Darkness

Into the darkness the baby comes

The light showed the way.

The shepherds and the wise man

Came to behold the blessed day.

The darkness still surrounds us

The headlines penetrate our hearts.

The dailyness of living wearies us

Right from morning’s start.

In this world there must be trouble.

But He has given us the light,

The way to walk in the darkness

That in its midst will make all things right.

The peace that passes understanding

Is the gift that we behold.

But we often look right past it

As our hearts in the dark run cold.

We must listen to the carols

And the hymns written to the Light.

And must take time to unwrap the goodness

That can shine in the midst of the night.

The government is on His shoulders.

So we can rest in the call

To pass the gift to others

Although it seems so small.

In three years of manhood, that

Babe grew to spread the message far and wide

His light has come.

It’s the reason why He died.

With the tree at Christmas,

We remember the one that held him in the dark.

We must remember the meaning of Christmas

The babe that lit the spark

Of the light that has come to the world.

It’s the gift that holds the light.

Spread it to those around us

It’s our hope of making all things right.

              

-        By Sherrill Schlimpert

Christmas 2018