A Christmas reflection for weary people
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It’s been a pretty normal year for me, 2013: a mixed bag. My problems are first world ones, and though it is always good to remind myself of this, it doesn’t stop me from suffering exhaustion and despondency from time to time.
This year we acquired a federal government who seems to care less about all the things I think are important than any I can remember. The church I love and work for is going through some complicated crises. Working at the heart of that – as I do – wears you down. I lost two friends under tragic circumstances. I left the church community where I’ve worshipped for 19 years and moved to another. Our youngest moved out of home.
Of course, there has been a lot of positive stuff – the unwavering faithfulness and good humour of my colleagues, the joy of getting to know a new congregation, the inspiring courage of the bereaved, delight in my adult offspring, kids coming home from overseas, deep appreciation of friendship, the unstinting love of my husband.
Particularly at Christmas, remembering the story of Jesus’ birth, life and death helps me keep going in the mixed bag of life, even when I am aching with weariness, both physical and emotional.
Christians believe that in some mysterious and unfathomable way, the God who made and sustains everything became an ordinary human, Jesus of Nazareth. I love this foundation story of my faith. I love to read about this Jesus in the Gospels.
He disobeyed his parents as a teenager, became frustrated with his followers who, most of the time, were almost comically obtuse about what he was trying to show them. He wept when his friend died. He loved eating and drinking and talking with those who were crying out for acceptance or genuinely wanting answers. He fell asleep from exhaustion in the middle of a storm, called powerful people names and violently drove corrupt moneylenders from the Temple. Like any good introvert, he had to run away from crowds for big slabs of time, to recharge his batteries by drawing deeply on his God. He suffered horrible humiliation and pain. He died.
This is part of what Christians celebrate at Christmas; that the big God loved us so much, God became human and experienced the whole human gamut of joy and grief, friendship and conflict, misunderstanding and violence, death and what is maybe the commonest and most pervasive of human experiences – deep weariness.
I love this Jesus, this God who has walked in our shoes but who managed to do it with immense integrity. I love that God is with us in this weird and wonderful adventure, defeating death and despair and breathing new life into our weary hearts.
Reader Comments (1)
What a wonderful antidote to the cynicism of those who ridicule Christian faith. The God Jesus shows us is one who makes human experience intelligible and credible. Thanks again Clare