A thought exercise:  Imagine this time of year without Christmas.  And by Christmas,  I am not referring (for the moment) to the Nativity story, but to the whole shabang.  The lights, the music, the food, the presents, the songs.  What would December be like if Christmas were not a holiday?

My thoughts are summed up in one word: dark.  Winter solstice is tomorrow.  The sun will rise at 7:28 AM.  It will set at 5:10 PM.  A scant 10 hours of sunlight.   For weeks now the darkness has been invading.  The sun has set by the time I pick my kids up from daycare.  The only daylight hours I spend inside, sitting at my desk, illuminated in the blue glow of my work.  There is even a new moon tomorrow- nothing to light the night sky.

Except.

Except for the Christmas lights.  Hundreds of them.  Clinging to lamp posts, dripping from rooftops, wrapped around porches and bushes and stair rails.  Moravian stars hanging from doorways.  Candles illuminating windows.  In the great darkness of winter, light is invading.

We have a whole set of novelties built into Christmas lore to combat the doldrums of the darkness.  New music to listen to, the lyrics filled with messages of joy.  Presents chosen and given with abandon.  Parties.  Parades.  Movies, TV specials.  All ways that we mark this season as different, joyful, the most wonderful time of the year.

What if Jesus’ entry into the world was the same?

the people living in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
    a light has dawned
Matthew 4:16

Christ’s advent was the dawning of a great light.  It brought hope to an increasingly dark world.  His message was one of redemption, of forgiveness, of freedom from the restrictive system of sacrifice.  Before, we were bound to the Law.  In Him, we have been redeemed.  We are free to give of ourselves, give to others.

How is your world lately?  Is it growing darker, busier, more repressed?  Or have you been gazing at the Light?  Are you living in drudgery, or in wonder?  What do you need to do to be able stop and marvel at the Hope that was born on Christmas day?

Where does one hear The Lord?
How does one learn to listen for His voice?

Is it found on the lips of the street corner evangelist,
in the Sunday morning pulpit,
or the rustling pages of scripture?

What about a baby’s cry,
a train whistle,
or the solitary song of a cricket?

Does it float down with the autumn leaves
or crackle in the logs on a fire?

How do I listen for the Almighty?
Is it a matter of preparing my ears, my eyes,
Or my heart?

and if I quiet myself, will I recognize Who I hear?

Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him
Genesis 22

If you are a parent, then you have experienced it.  The paralyzing fear that something will happen to this little person that you love so much.  That all your love, your energy spent raising them, the precautions you take to preserve their life and safety, will come to naught.  That one terrifying, cataclysmic accident will suddenly steal that precious one away.  This fear gnaws at my mind.  It haunts my sleep.  It makes adrenaline spike when I am driving my car.  It makes me feel so… helpless.

I have heard these fears echoed by my friends.  I see it over and over again in online parenting communities, blog posts, Facebook comments.  The fear can be terrorizing.  I put bumpers on my crib… could my baby suffocate?  I didn’t put bumpers on my crib, could my baby get stuck in the crib slats? You wake up in the middle of the night, needing to check and see if they are still breathing, if their tiny hearts are still beating.

How can we as parents survive the terror?  What can we tell ourselves so that we are finally able to let go of the fear, get a full night’s sleep again?  For me, the issue boils down to trust.  How can I trust that my little ones will be safe when daily, I see evidence to the opposite?  This world is teeming with stories of horrors, of terrible accidents, famine, and pain.  And yet, the God we serve purports to be good.  I find myself able to trust his goodness when placing my own life in His hands, yet when it comes to my children, I doubt.  I fear.  I find myself unwilling for them to go through pain and heartache, even if I know that it is, in the end, redemptive.

I find a kind of perverse comfort in the story of Abraham and Isaac.  Here is Isaac, a strong, beautiful boy.  A child of God’s promise.  A living covenant.  And yet, God is asking Abraham to go and sacrifice him.  How?  Why?  It seems so harsh, so horrible.  Yes, God provides in the end, but imagine the anguish of each step taken up Mount Moriah, the tension of living in the doubt, the fear, the horror of the task ahead of you.  God provided a ram, but Abraham still made a sacrifice.  On that mountain, Abraham’s ownership over Isaac’s life was offered up.  His dreams for his son, his sense of control over Isaac’s future, were laid upon the altar.  They remained there, to be sacrificed along with the goat.

When I find myself in a crisis of trust, when I am not sure I trust God to sustain the lives of my children, when I doubt the path God is leading them down, I find solace in this passage.  I do not own the lives of my children.  It is not my white knuckled decisions that will determine the course of their lives, ensure their safety.  Instead, that belongs to my Father.  I must sacrifice my dreams, my sense of control, and allow God to provide for them.  It is the scariest peace I have ever experienced.  But it is a necessary one.  A dubious grace, that refines me even as I surrender to it.

Have you allowed God to reign in the ‘Isaac moments’ of your life?

Confession.  I haven’t told anyone I have a blog.  Why?  Because I am afraid.  I am afraid of what others think, that my thoughts aren’t complete enough, that my writing isn’t strong enough.  But as I was thinking on this last night (selah) I realized that the reason I haven’t shared my blog is, at its core, because of my lack of hospitality.  I am afraid it isn’t pretty enough for public consumption.  I’m intimidated by my friends and family looking at the contents of my imagination.

But if I am going to take seriously this echo, this call to practice Christian hospitality, don’t I need to share it?  Isn’t this exactly what God is calling us to do?  Be intentionally transparent with each other?  Be vulnerable?  Allow my friends to see that I’m not really sure where to put a comma, and know that the concept of Selah is something that in equal parts attracts me and confuses me?

I think that risking this, risking the fact that some people will think I am pompous or self promoting, risking that my deepest thoughts aren’t really that deep is worth it.  So here goes…