The Mystery of Christmas
It's alright to believe, without always knowing
As a child, my family took a twice-a-year pilgrimage (most summers and Christmases) from Virginia to my grandmother's house in Benton, Arkansas. Eighteen plus hours of driving, three young boys in the car, sometimes with just my mom while my dad worked and came later, sometimes the whole fam. When I was around 10 years old, my family was there, as usual, visiting with extended relatives, listening to a rotation of Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and other Christmas favorites, and anxiously awaiting Christmas morning with a near-A Christmas Story-like fervor. This particular Christmas, I remember an experience that exemplifies the wonder I’ve always felt this time of year.
Like many other children (before and since), Christmas Eve was always a tough part of Christmas for me. Something about the anticipation of Christmas morning brought out my future obsessive-compulsive self, and I usually spent late into the night worrying about whether I would get my expected allotment of loot. There was a shortage of beds in my grandmother's house during these visits, and this particular Christmas I was sloughed off to my uncle's room, where I attempted, as usual, my ritual of falling asleep and failing. Sometime late, after hours of tossing and turning, I finally crashed. My uncle must have come into his room to sleep, for very late in the night I woke needing to pee as bad as I've ever had to in my lifetime. I mean, stomach hurting, eyes crossing needing to pee. My back teeth were beyond floating, my whole body was. I tried to think of something else, to get my mind off the pressure in my bladder, to await early morning when I could finally relieve myself and join my two brothers to race down the hall and open presents. As time slowly ticked by, I realized there was no way I would make it to morning in my current state.
You see, in my grandmother's house, Christmas presents from Santa were arrayed, unwrapped, for the kids to sprint down the single hallway she had and begin our Christmas journey in the ecstasy that only a child on Christmas morning can feel. These unwrapped treasures were visible as we hurtled toward them, often leading to my brothers and I elbowing and pushing one another on the way to our He-Man Castle of Greyskull, GI Joe attack helicopters, and SO SO MUCH cool stuff awaiting us. And I knew that, at this time of night, Santa MUST have deposited these treasures into my grandmother's house. Walking down her hallway to the bathroom with my eyes wide open would allow me to see them, arrayed and ready for play, as they awaited my brothers and my own expectant hands. The mystery ruined, I'd be forced to wait another full year to experience this level of wonder.
So, with a heavy heart, I woke my uncle and asked him to walk me down the hallway to the bathroom with his hands covering my eyes, so I could relieve my (nearly dribbling as I walked at this point) bladder. He's 8 years older than me, so if my recollection is right and I was 10, he was 18. In a dick move that only an 18-year-old can fully appreciate, he reacted from moment to moment as we walked down the hall:
'Oh, look at that!'
'Wow, that is a really cool present, you sure you don't want to look?'
'My goodness I didn't know they made those, that's amazing!'
And so on as we walked down the hall, his hands covering my eyes while he exclaimed non-stop at the presents that Santa had carefully laid out for us.
It was excruciatingly painful, and at nearly 50, absolutely hilarious. At the time, I hated him with a passion previously unknown on this earth.
You see, I've never been a kid who wanted to find out what he was getting before Christmas day. Never spent November and December searching the house for my parent's hiding places, never tried to get into the off-limits room my mom sequestered for nearly the entire month of December to wrap presents, never tried to open boxes I was sure were earmarked for me. To my mind, what I would have lost in knowing was never worth ruining the surprise, the joy of Christmas was in the wonder of things I didn't know. For me, it was worth it to wake up my uncle in the middle of the night, to embarrassingly beg and convince him to cover my eyes as I walked down the hall to the bathroom, so that Christmas morning remained the magical mystery I had always known it to be.
I cannot help but still have that wonder about the Christmas season, but as I have adjusted from my 10-year-old to my nearly 50-year-old state, the object of my wonder has changed from presents to Christ as the ultimate Christmas present. From things under my tree to His body hanging on one. From surprise gifts to surprises about Scripture, the God who wrote them, and his salvific plan for humanity. I’m inspired to be a part of a story that I don’t completely understand, but that I know is inexorably good. Maybe it's just that 50-year-old version of the 10-year-old me, but I seem to find just as much mystery as if my eyes were being covered by the God of the universe as they were by my uncle so many years ago. Some things I find mystery in this Christmas include:
God sent a baby to save us? I would have come with a sword, with a heavenly army, and laid waste to all evil with a self-righteous violence that would have made the world tremble. Instead, we're to believe that God sent a baby, part man and part God, with the vital mission of saving the human race.
Hundreds of years of prophecy were fulfilled with a near-impoverished Jewish carpenter, born of a virgin? I would have sent a priest, given him a shit ton of money, and provided a holy megaphone (and probably some miracles, that part I would have kept) to ensure that every person on Earth was able to hear the message. I wouldn't have chosen a son of a carpenter, in the middle of Nazareth, and allowed people to snicker behind their backs that he was 'Mary's son' (implying he was a bastard).
A Spiritual battle using love as God's primary weapon? This one's easy. I would have never dreamed that God would use love as his principal weapon. I would have used flamethrowers or super cool heavenly artillery.
Salvation amongst the sheep? Blood to cover my brokenness? I wouldn't have trusted Joseph and Mary to take care of the Savior of the World, let alone send them to Bethlehem for a census or have them chased to Egypt with a vengeful king chasing them down. I think blood is gross and I have NO IDEA why God appears to require it, and yet the Bible is pretty clear he does. It reminds me poetically of the 'old magic' that Aslan speaks of in The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe, but how on earth blood and salvation are linked is a mystery to me.
The death of a son to save ALL the sons and daughters? I've lost a child. It’s excruciating, I don’t wish it on anyone, and there were days I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. I don't know how God could willingly decide to sacrifice his. And while I'll take the sacrifice any day, HOW that works in practice (he dies so we can live?) is an absolute enigma.
Just like that 10-year-old I used to be, I still don’t totally get it, and I’m guessing many of you might not either. Maybe you’re not like that 10-year-old version of me, and you can’t keep yourself from ferreting out hidden Christmas treasures before the 25th. Maybe you can't wait until Christmas morning, and the suspense of not knowing the answers before the 'big day' doesn’t bring you any joy, but frustrates you. Maybe it feels like God is holding out on us all, that if he’d just let us into the secrets of the story, everything would make more sense.
But, if you find yourself like me this Christmas, I beg you to lean into the mystery. It’s okay to wait with eyes closed as Christ arrays the gifts he’s prepared in ways incomprehensible to many (most?) of us. Somehow, some cosmic play is being enacted by characters we don’t completely understand. Blood somehow substitutes for our failures, a man was somehow also God, magic IS REAL and appears to intercede on our behalf, and babies born in stables can save the world. I don’t understand it, and I can’t necessarily ‘prove’ to you how it works, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe it. The mystery, for me anyway, is one I look forward to sitting at Christ’s feet and learning some future day. If you can, allow your eyes to stay closed, let the mystery wash over you, and choose to imagine the glory that awaits you and the arms that long to hold you. The wait will be worth it.
Merry Christmas from Divergent Dad, like Mary ponder these things in your own minds and hearts, and I pray the mystery of Christmas blesses you and yours.
Beautiful. Merry Christmas!