Secular Christmas songs imply Christmas is the happiest time of the year, but this denies the realities of Christmas’s challenges, from the very first Christmas to the Christmases of today. Remember, Mary gave birth in a stable, not in a warm, clean place, and she had no family to help her during that painful delivery of Jesus. Even as she suffered then, Christmas today may also come with pain and challenges, but we can still rejoice, even when we feel pain. Please join me as I look at challenges and joys of Christmas.
Modern Christmas cards glamorize Mary and Joseph and the stable where Jesus was born. But Mary had no anesthesia for her pain as she delivered Jesus. She had no loving family members to congratulate her and Joseph upon the birth of Jesus. And in these stables, animals poop where Mary and Joseph could have smelled it. Mary did not have a bath available after the delivery to clean herself up. Unlike the comforts of a modern hospital, Mary had to suffer in this rough environment.
And unlike modern births where family and friends praise the couple for their baby, Mary faced the stigma of looking like an immoral woman, even though Mary did not commit fornication (sex before marriage) to become pregnant. In John 8:41, the Jews said to Jesus, “We are not illegitimate children,” because they still believed Mary had sex before marriage to conceive Jesus. Although Joseph did marry Mary before Jesus was born (Matt. 1:24) he did not have sexual relations with her until after Jesus was born. So Mary was still a virgin, but now in pain after the birth of Jesus, and Joseph was still a pure man who also had not had sex with Mary before Jesus was born. That first Christmas was not the scene of a couple who had enjoyed a passionate honeymoon and produced a child. Neither of them had experienced this pleasure. They experienced all the hardship of a child’s birth, without the earlier joyful passions of married life.
Remember that Mary and Joseph were so poor, they had to offer two turtle doves as a sacrifice at Mary’s purification ceremony (Luke 2:22-24) forty days after Jesus’ birth. In Leviticus chapter 12, various animals can be offered for this ceremony, and only the poorest people could offer turtle doves. This shows that Mary and Joseph suffered the worst poverty when Jesus was born. Furthermore, Mary was in her ninth month of pregnancy when she had to travel, by donkey, to Bethlehem, so when she gave birth to Jesus, she would have already been sore in her thighs, and exhausted. Imagine how very, very sore her legs would have been after Jesus’ birth.
We need to remember these hardships of the first Christmas, so we do not fall for the lure of secular songs, greetings cards and movies that glamorize Christmas as if this is the season when everyone gets along and has fun. Life’s pain still exists at this time of year. We are the same people with the same flaws and fears. And when we are forced to get together with family members who may make too many demands of us, or who may be harsh and unkind, we will still feel aggravation. If we spend too much time and money on gifts and decorating, we will also feel that grief. If anything, excess plans for Christmas can make us more unhappy than before.
Yet the message of Christmas is not unhappy. Even in the midst of Mary and Joseph’s pain, they also had joy. They got to help bring into the world the “Son of God,” in human form. They got to experience God’s approval of their lives. They were living in direct obedience of God’s will. They had both done what God had called them to do: “Behold I am the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word,” Luke 1:28 when Mary agreed to carry Jesus in her womb; and :“Joseph woke up from his sleep and he did as the angel commanded him and took Mary as his wife,” Matt. 1:24. How many people hear God’s exact plan for their life and then follow it? Despite the pain and rejection they must have received (due to Mary’s pregnancy) they also enjoyed peace with God, due to obeying his will (Isaiah 26:3 “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you.”)
The secular world tells us to be happy in Christmas. God tells us to be happy in Christ and then to celebrate him, which we do at Christmas. The season of Christmas cannot bring us happiness in itself, and it may even bring conflict, even as it did with the first Christmas. But Christ will never disappoint us. In John 16:33 Jesus promised, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” We are wise to expect some stress and strife at Christmas. We are wise to not believe the secular myths of Christmas being the happiest time of the year. It was a very painful and difficult time for Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. If we expect an easy holiday, we will find disappointment. But if we understand life will be difficult, but Jesus will join us in that trouble, then we can look forward to a beautiful and joy filled Christmas, whether or not stress and strife come with this holiday. Jesus is here with us, so in him we find our joy.
May the Lord bless you this week. Thanks for joining us in this post!