When I Feel Like Scrooge At Christmas

Maybe it's all the stress I've been under lately. Maybe it's the realization that literally billions of people around the world have no idea what Christmas is and they have never heard the name of Jesus. Maybe it's that today of all days is the most painful day to stare my impatient and selfish depravity in the face. 

I don't want to make excuses, but there must be some reason, whether good or not, for feeling like Ebenezer Scrooge at Christmastime. It's as if the green I painted onto my fingernails took over and turned me into the Grinch. I'm just not overwhelmed with Christmas cheer today. In fact, I rather feel like crying. Surprise, surprise, but it still doesn't feel like Christmas. 

So, that's a sure sign that I need to go back to truth, back to what is real. God is on His throne, and right next to Him sits my Jesus whose birth we celebrate, still wearing a bit of this human flesh I'm feeling to keenly tonight, still with us, still with me. 

And He understands what it's like for it to not feel like Christmas. He knows what it's like to feel cornered and accused. He knows what it's like to feel trapped in humanity and aching to find your way back to something you think you once knew, but can't quite remember. Even though He is God, He knows what it is to be separated from God.

On the cross, it didn't feel like Christmas. When my Jesus cried out with a loud voice "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!" it sure didn't feel like Christmas. But in that moment was when it was more truly Christmas then it had been since the day Jesus was born. In that moment when it felt least like Christmas, God was most with us, most relating to our plight, most understanding our humanity, and most perfectly reconciling us to Himself. 

So Merry Christmas, even when it doesn't always feel like it.