Christmas Hope
Part of becoming an adult and finding happiness is a process of trying to find your own true meaning of Christmas. We are all in our own version of Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol” trying to sort through our lives and be a little less Scrooge and a little more Fezziwig. The quest at its foundation is a search for hope.
The whole foundation of Christmas is to celebrate the arrival of the savior of mankind who is offering us hope for salvation and purpose.
One of my favorite movie scenes of perhaps the second greatest Christmas movie of all time ” A wonderful life” is when the Senior Angel is speaking the the angel in training Clarence.
“Senior Angel : A man down on Earth needs our help.
Clarence : Splendid. Is he sick?
Senior Angel : No, worse. He’s discouraged.”
I think many times in life that is danger we face- the danger of discouragement. A life without hope.
In 2021 we have the challenges of a Virus that has changed our lives, and in a way robbed us of hope. We have all become somewhat discouraged.
Discouraged not from incompetent leaders or scientists, although they have contributed they are not the cause of our discouragement- they were there before the virus and will be here after. The cause is that we have lost hope, we have lost our way, many of us are planning for a future that will be less bright- and simply worse.
Adding to that we are beginning to see each other as enemy’s without salivation. To see people as either as too stupid or too evil to have worth because you disagree with their politics or medical treatments. When you don’t believe we have been promised salvation- hope disappears and our discouragement makes enemies out of friends.
When I think of Christmas and the birth of Jesus I really focus on what his birth meant and why after more than 2 millennium we continue to debate not only his existence by his purpose. I think what makes the Christmas story sustainable isn’t Santa Clause but the idea that we have been promised eternal hope.
Christmas is a time to reflect on the promise of Christ’s birth, the promise to all of us that we have the opportunity to better ourselves by how we treat one another. That the gift of Christmas is the birth of Hope through the birth of a Savor.
I know as I write this many of my readers and children question the existence or purpose of Jesus and God generally. But even if you don’t believe, you can celebrate what Christmas represents – that tomorrow offers a brighter future for everyone, no matter their past choices and mistakes. That Christmas is the the promise of hope in our lives.
So no matter how you choice to celebrate it, I want to wish you a lifetime of hope and the Merriest of Christmases.