Pain can be intensified by a time of joy. The holidays can be such a time. Is there any way on earth you could know the pleasure of Thanksgiving, Advent, Hanukkah, and Christmas if you are in agony?
This a time when our culture calls for joy. But if our hearts are reeling in pain it can seem almost cruelly insensitive when God and church ask us to “rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil 4:4).
We now stretch the holidays as if their longevity could overcome our malaise and depression. Tomorrow is the Festival of Christ the King, a time to celebrate the defining presence of God during the last year. And we look forward to Thanksgiving times with family and food and football fun. Then we anticipate the coming of God into our world in all the various forms of Advent. Hanukkah celebrates the victory of the Maccabees over Syria in 165 BC and the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem. And then Christmas joins these holy days to form a portrait of joy, love, and warmth in a sometimes cold world.
But our losses, our pain can overwhelm us, yes? We have all lost something or someone during the recent Coronavirus troubles. My wife and I have lost parents, siblings, and friends in recent years. The empty places at our tables can bring tears along with Thanksgiving. And though we have three wonderful four legged children we still miss our dear Tara and Laurel. And we are not only assailed by losses common to all humankind throughout history. We seem also, in our time, to have lost our bearings as a human race, to have misplaced our moral compass and wonder where and how civil respect has departed. Is there a balm in Gilead? Is there a word of hope that can transform even our pain into an occasion for Thanksgiving?
And what of God? Does God, does Jesus ever know pain in a time of joy?
A condensed excerpt from my book, Climbing Home: From Valleys of Despair to Mountains of Hope*, suggests that the pain of God can offer a transformed perspective and a word of hope:
“Your life is, at times, painful. Some of you have known the pain of loss, others the pain of never finding. Some have known the excruciating pain of losing a child; others have known the very different but very difficult pain of infertility. Some of you have known the pain of job loss; you may also have known the prolonged agony of looking for but not finding a job. Some of you have courageously kept on and on at a job you don’t like, detest even, but you’ve kept on working to provide for those you love. Some of you have known the pain of addiction, others have suffered patiently with boredom.”
“You have taught me about pain. You have asked your question of pain in my counseling office, in church foyers, in hospitals, in funeral homes, on front porches as I visited, and after class as we talked over a lesson then later addressed your real question. You have asked, ‘How can I endure? How can I possibly know the pleasure of Christmas when I know such pain in this time of joy?' And as I have been privileged to listen to how you and God answered your own question, you have taught me.”
“You have taught me that, in Christ, pain is not so much a problem as it is the constricting of the womb of God out of which we are born into newness of life.”
Can you imagine Mary’s labor after a long journey of escape from government on the back of a donkey? Labor in a horse stall with no midwife, no doctor, no anesthesia!
Can you imagine the birth and childhood trauma of Jesus’ developing awareness of the death for which he was destined? A death of prolonged agony from the equivalent of a barbed wire whip, beating out bloody teeth, stripped, shamed, slandered, slaughtered in ways that would be called animal cruelty if done to a hog or cow.
Can you imagine the agony of God watching Mary's isolated labor, seeing his son thus born to be done to death in that way? Yet the labor, the trauma, the agony of God in the babe in a manger and the man on a cross are—these are the birth pangs of God bringing life to you, life that you can know even in your pain.
For “…where meek souls do receive him still, the dear Christ enters in;” and there, deep within your pain at this time of joy, new life can be born as God comes to us, abides with us loving us into life, loving us even into joy in a time of pain.
*You can read more about my book, Climbing Home: From Valleys of Despair to Mountains of Hope, including ordering information on the book, on the book page of my website, madocthomas.com.
