Hope in the Christmas Story

The Christmas Story offers hope even in the middle of our darkest season - I would say especially in our darkest season. It's not uncommon for us to dress up the Christmas story and remove the grittiness and the humanity from it. Lets take a closer look. Let's talk about the very real emotional drama that was unfolding. There is so much comfort in the realization that this is where Jesus chose to enter the story as Emanuel God with us - God with us in the middle of emotional mess, God with us in the middle of imperfection. I am not alone, God is with me in the middle of it all.

Transcript

Hello, my name is Tiffany, and welcome to the podcast Working on Amazing. This is a podcast where we talk about the work that it takes to rebuild an amazing life.

And I use that word rebuild because we are specifically designed for women who feel like they're starting over in the middle of their life.

If that's you, if you feel like you're having to start over and do a midlife reboot, first, I want to say I'm sorry. I know how bad that feels.

It feels overwhelming and itchy to have all your plans for the future change, and you kind of have to just start over. But I'm here to tell you, it gets better. It may feel itchy in the moment.

It may feel itchy now, but there is so much hope and so much joy, and so much goodness on the other side. I promise you, you are not alone. You're actually in the right place.

So welcome. I'm so glad that you're here. So let's get down to today's episode.

Today, we're going to talk about the Christmas story.

And if you're anything like me, when I was in the middle of my dark season, as much as I had loved Christmas, and Christmas is still my very favorite holiday, in the middle of a really dark season, I really didn't want to celebrate Christmas.

The only reason why I celebrated Christmas those years was for my children. I really just wanted it to be over with. I just wanted it to be done.

I didn't feel joyous. I didn't feel happy. I didn't feel all those things.

And seeing everybody else joyful just felt like a painful reminder of what I had lost. It just didn't feel good.

So if that's you, I do understand, but I'm here to bring you comfort from the Christmas story, some hope from the Christmas story, maybe a different perspective than you've thought about before, a little bit of a different point of view.

I think in modern society, we look at the nativity and the Christmas story, and it is beautiful and perfect. I mean, most nativities that I see, they're wearing beautiful clothing. It's unsoiled and unstained.

The manger, the hay has been brushed out and is laying neatly. We've taken away any dirt and any humanity from it, and we've made it beautiful. And I like that.

I like nativities. They remind me of the point of the Christmas season. But I think we've made them so pretty and so ornate that they've lost their humanity.

The grit, the realness behind the actual story. We've made them TV-ready almost, you know? But the reality is there was a lot of grit and a lot of humanity in this story.

And that grit and that humanity brought me an immense amount of comfort during my difficult season.

So, I just want to pull back the curtain from the beautiful nativity we see and just maybe talk about the humanity behind it and the comfort we can get from that. So, I always grew up reading the Christmas story from Luke chapter 2.

Luke chapter 2 talks about the birth of Christ. And there are sections of this chapter that I memorized as a child, and I would recite them in Sunday school or whatever. But nobody really read the very beginning.

And in the very first part of the chapter, the first few verses are where I realized there was a lot of hope. And it just sounds very historical, like reading what happened.

But I'm going to read it to you, and I'm going to show you where I found immense hope in this part of the Christmas story.

So Luke chapter 2 verse 1, In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.

This was the first census that took place why Quaterius, I might have pronounced that name wrong, was the governor of Syria. And everyone went to their hometown to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.

He went there to register with Mary, who was also pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. Okay, that's the first five verses of Luke chapter two. And a lot of times we kind of skip over that part.

We talk more about the shepherds and then, you know, all the other stuff. Why is this part important? I think it gives us a little bit of a clue.

Joseph had to go to be registered in Bethlehem because his family line was from Bethlehem. So he had to go back to where he came from to be registered in this census, okay? And you're gonna have to go with me a little bit on a hypothetical.

The Bible doesn't say explicitly if Joseph had brothers or uncles, but it did say everyone had to go back to where they were from, and his family line was from there, so he went back there. I propose that his family was in Bethlehem.

His family had to go back to be registered. So, when there was no room at the inn, I don't know if his family was staying at the inn or if his family had a house down the street, but they weren't welcome.

Why wouldn't they have been welcome with family? Because Mary was pregnant. Now, the angel came to Mary and explained to her what was happening, and the angel came to Joseph and explained to Joseph what was going on.

But the angel did not go to Joseph's family, and Joseph's family very, very likely took offense to the fact that he was marrying a girl who was already pregnant. That was a huge no-no in their culture, in their religion, in their faith.

That was a big mess up, okay? So if you're from a big family, I have on one side of my family is very, very big. My dad is one of nine children, so that's a really, really big family, right?

And they always would say when I remember being little, come on, yeah, there's room for everybody. And sometimes the kids had to sleep on the floor, you know, because I was a kid. Sometimes you had to sleep on the couch.

I don't know. You scoot over, you make room, but there's room for everybody in a big family. But there wasn't room for Mary, because she had stepped outside the line to their eyes, because like I said, they didn't have the angel visit them.

So she didn't have a room. She didn't have a bed. She had a stable.

And that stable, we talk about, well, that was 2,000 years ago. But even 2,000 years ago, a stable was not the ideal environment to give birth to a child. You would have wanted a room.

You would have wanted a bed. You would have wanted family. And she didn't have those things.

And I believe family was nearby. But family kind of snubbed her.

And when I see that, when I look, oh my gosh, all of Joseph's family, everyone, it says everyone, had to go back to where they were from, most likely Joseph's family was there, and there was no room, no room for you. And I'm just a little bit in awe.

God, in His infinite wisdom, could have picked anywhere in the timeline to insert His Son into the human story. I mean, we look at other stories of children that were significant in their birth story. We look at the story of Moses in the basket.

I look to think about the story of Samuel. But God chose for Jesus to enter our story line, the human story line, in this way, where family had taken offense, where there was a little bit of drama, a little bit of pain, a little bit of hurt.

It was messy. Stables are not clean. They stink.

They are dirty. God chose this moment to enter the human story. He could have done anything.

He could have entered anywhere. But he chose the most human, emotional, painfully emotional moment. He chose a little bit of rejection.

He chose a little bit of dirt. He chose a little bit of mess. And he said, this is where I'm going to show up.

This is where I'm going to meet you. This is where I'm going to come into your story. In the middle of rejection, and in the middle of it being painful, emotionally painful, physically painful.

I'm going to show up right here. And the comfort that I get from that is enormous.

When I was in the middle of a dark season in my life, and it felt like everything was painful and messy, and there was family drama, and there was rejection, and there was hurt, and there was pain.

And I realized that's where Jesus came into the story. He came into a little bit of family drama, a little bit of rejection, some offense, the whole totality of humanity, the emotional side of humanity. He came into the middle of that mess.

That's where he chose. He could have chosen anything, and he said, no, in the middle of the hurt, in the pain, the rejection, the imperfection. That is where I'm going to come into your story.

And if that is where you are in your life right now, that's where Jesus enters your story. That's where he comes in. And it doesn't feel that way.

And in that moment, I don't know how revolutionary and the revelation that Mary felt or didn't feel. I think she felt all the humanity. I think she felt labor pains.

I think she smelled the manure. I think it wasn't as beautiful as we make it. I think she felt the rejection.

I think she felt the pain. And Jesus came, and humanity was forever changed. Salvation came, and it came in the middle of mess.

It came in the middle of imperfection. And I am imperfect, and I look, and I so want to clean up. I want to get relationships made right.

I want the family ties to be restored. I want this to, you know, so and so is bad, it's such and such.

And I need to get that all ready and perfect, so that I can come before God and say, see, this is all me, and I've forgiven this, and we've all gotten back and made things right. But Jesus says, I come to you in the middle of it.

And you don't have to be perfect for me to enter the story. You don't have to be neat. You don't have to be clean.

You don't have to brush out the hay and make it all nice and neat. I can come in to the story. I enter at the lowest point, at the itkiest moment, and at the things that feel so bad.

That's where I say, I'm coming in. I'm showing up.

And if you don't feel like celebrating Christmas, if it does not feel like it should, if there are family relationships that are really strained, if there's somebody you're not talking to, if they are offended by what you've done, you know what?

That might be the exact place Jesus wants to show up. He is not surprised or offended by your story. He is not surprised or offended by your mess.

You don't have to clean it up. That's where he shows up. He shows up, and he gives us strength, and he helps us get through.

He shows up in the middle of the itchiness, emotional itchiness, physical itchiness, just ugh, the hardest parts. And he's not surprised. He's not saying, you really need to get this taken care of.

Oh my gosh, they're offended at you. You need to go and whatever. He's like, I'm here.

There's no judgment, there's no condemnation. He just shows up and he changes things. And things didn't change immediately.

I don't know the story of Joseph's family as it relates to Mary. I just know that I'm pretty sure that they were in town because they had to report back to the same place that Joseph did.

And Joseph was part of a family, and his family had to report back. Or maybe they were already living there. I just know, I'm fairly certain, that Joseph's family was there in Bethlehem too.

And it's very clear as you read the story, that they were not part of the birth of Christ. They weren't standing around. Maybe amends were made.

Maybe they weren't. I don't know, but I know that in the middle of rejection, in the middle of offense, in the middle of not fitting in, that's where Jesus showed up. In the middle of things not going quite like you thought they would.

In the middle of my story feels a little bit off. Like this wasn't the plan that I had for my life. Things have changed drastically.

Right in the middle of that, Jesus shows up. And he could have picked anywhere. Like I said, there's other birth stories in the Bible that we look at.

He could have entered in any way. He got to choose where he came in. He got to choose the moment.

He got to choose all of it. I mean, it was divine. And this is what he chose.

And I think just that choice brings us comfort. Just the fact that that's where he chose to show up, lets me know that he is not offended by the mess around me, emotional mess, physical mess too. He's not offended by that.

He's not surprised by that. He's not taken aback. He's like, I'm here, even in the messy parts, because I chose to show up in the middle of the messy parts.

Family drama has been around for centuries, and I'm here, and I love you, and I love them, and I'm here.

That just makes me feel so much better, because I think I always felt like I had to make it look neat and beautiful and perfect, and I had to try so hard to have this perfect family Christmas moment, and then it was so clear, like not going to be a

perfect Christmas family moment anymore, and I felt like a failure, because I didn't have that picture perfect moment. But that's fake. And sometimes the facade of the nativity is fake. The story is real.

But the facade, it's like we put this filter, like a Snapchat filter on it, and we make it look beautiful. But there's comfort in the reality, in the humanity. That Christ chose that moment of deep emotional distress to say, here, this is where I am.

If you're in emotional distress, if your family isn't what you thought it would be, extended, nuclear, all of the things, if there is tension and pain in those relationships, God is right there with you. That is where he chose to enter the story.

And in the middle of that, you are not alone, and you have nothing to be ashamed of. You have nothing to fear. Emanuel God with us.

God with us in the middle of imperfection. God with us in the middle of our pain. God with us in the middle of our hurt.

That is the beauty of Christmas and the Christmas story. It doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to have a Hallmark Christmas movie moment.

You don't have to have the postcard picture. You don't have to have any of that. It's okay.

God is with you in the middle of it. And in that moment, birth, salvation for the human race, that moment brought eternal salvation for me 2,000 years later, and you 2,000 years later. And it was so messy, and it was so imperfect.

And if I were in charge, I would have made it so different. And I'm so glad I wasn't in charge. I'm so glad it wasn't up to me.

The humanity, the authenticity gives me an immense amount of hope. And I hope that you find comfort in the realness of the Christmas Story. It's not perfect, and it wasn't ever supposed to be.

I think in our humanity and our perfection-driven minds, we just keep on trying to clean it up and polish it, and we make it look beautiful, and it is beautiful. But we've denied ourself the rawness. We've denied ourself the reality.

And in that reality and in that humanity and in that rejection and pain, there is hope. If that's where Jesus chose to enter the story of humanity, he's with me here in my story right now. He's here.

This is where he chose to enter, and that choice speaks volumes. So he is here with me in my pain. He is here with me in my brokenness, in my rejection, in my not-good-enoughness.

The emotional mess that I am sitting in, Emanuel got with us. That is the part of the Christmas story that I want to remind you of today.

When you're in a dark season, just to remember that Christ came in the middle of a dark place, in the middle of rejection, in the middle of family drama, in the middle of emotional messiness. He showed up, and he's going to show up for you.

He's already there. He's there right in the middle of it. I'm so grateful that I serve a God who meets me in the middle of my mess, in the middle of my imperfection, in the middle of I'm not good enough, in the middle of I can't do it on my own.

He comes right there beside me. And I don't have to be perfect. And I don't have to comb out the hay and put on the fanciest garments.

I can just be me, because that's the reality of what happened. He showed up, and they were just them, and it was messy, and it was probably stinky. And we can be that way, too.

God with us in the middle of our humanity. And humanity means emotional drama and physical mess, and it's okay. God's right there with you.

That's the hope I found in the Christmas Story in my dark season. God with me, even in the middle of emotional chaos, even in the middle of family being mad at each other, even in the middle of a broken home, even in the middle of all of it.

God's right there, because that's where he chose. That's where he chose. He chose to come in the middle of it.

And he chooses that again and again for you. So take heart. You are not alone.

Emanuel God with us in the raw and gritty parts. He's right there. I hope you have a very Merry Christmas.

I hope that you find comfort in God with us. Thank you for joining me today. I look forward to talking to you next time.

Bye.