Perhaps it was a sudden death that no one expected. Maybe your spouse passed after a long battle with cancer. Maybe suicide stole your son or daughter right out of your arms.
Whatever the culprit, the loss still makes your bones ache, and now the holiday lights threaten to expose the wounds that most people never see. Even surrounded by friends, the loneliness of loss crowds in around you.
Although Jesus’ birth is good news of great joy, grief is not as foreign to the Christmas story as you may think. It was Joseph and Mary who not only lost their reputations but also their way of life to an unplanned pregnancy forcing them to leave everything familiar behind as they fled for their lives to Egypt with Baby Jesus in tow.
While they escaped danger, many other families in the community of Bethlehem were not so fortunate. When Herod discovered that a suspected rival had been born, he ordered all the young males to be killed.
Then what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: 18 A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be consoled, because they are no more. Matthew 2:17-18
Jesus, the “Consolation of Israel” had come, yet there was no consoling these young families that stood at the gravesite of their children. Christmas was good news, but it did not come without shining the light on the dreadful darkness of sin and death.
So how do we celebrate Christmas when we’ve lost so much? How do we grieve well through this season of wonder, grace, and joy?
Grieve without guilt.
Lament is a normal part of our life in Christ. It’s tempting to skip past it and assume that the Christian life is only glorious triumph. But the Psalms, for example, unveil the personal experience of adversity, loss, pain, and grief that every one of us will face.
Let my cry for help come before you. 2 Do not hide your face from me in my day of trouble. Listen closely to me; answer me quickly when I call. 3 For my days vanish like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace. 4 My heart is suffering, withered like grass; I even forget to eat my food. Psalms 102:1-4
God is our refuge, and Jesus has defeated sin, death, and the grave. So we grieve with hope, but we still grieve. We trust God while mourning, not instead of mourning. We lean on Jesus as we feel deeply for those we have loved and lost. So grieve without guilt, cry out to God casting all your cares on Jesus because he cares for you (1 Peter 5:7).
Expect tears and laughter.
We are emotional beings. God created us that way.
So there will be moments of unexpected sorrow followed by moments of unplanned laughter. Bible teacher Ron Dunn used to say, “Good and bad run on parallel tracks, and they normally arrive together.”
The Christmas season offers so many opportunities for fun, laughter, and celebration, but none of us should expect it to be void of some measure of pain, difficulty, or struggle. So enjoy the season, shop ‘til your drop, throw a party, but also relentlessly fight against the pressure of making Christmas into a perfectly pain-free season.
Instead, fix your gaze on Jesus, your perfect Savior and closest Friend.
Tell yourself the truth.
Loss and loneliness have a way of lying to us. Grief distorts our thinking and sometimes convinces us that God has forgotten us, that he has abandoned us. As we look around and see other people enjoying themselves, we can assume that the world is passing us by and that God is leaving us behind.
Anger and anxiety often grow in these darkest of nights. And even depression can take root and crush our soul. So rather than trust your feelings, choose to trust God and take him at his word.
You are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalms 139) and incredibly loved by God, but notice what the apostle Paul also chose to believe about God during his dark days of suffering:
Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. 8 We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; 9 we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. 2 Corinthians 4:7-9
The pain is real, but so is the power of God. And although you are “afflicted in every way,” you are never forsaken by God. He is near to the broken hearted, and he is near to you.
Receive the comfort of Jesus.
The grief that makes our bones ache can also turn our hearts hard. Our pain can tempt us to deny the sufficiency of the Gospel.
It’s even possible that in our attempt to honor the memory of our loved one, we reject the good work Jesus has done to remove the sting of death and to rescue all of us from the grip of sin. It’s possible to handcraft our grief into a favored idol of our heart.
The doxology of the angelic host on that first Christmas morning means, however, that although you mourn, you will not always mourn with the same intensity that you do today. It even means there will be a time you will not mourn at all!
In a soon and coming day, Jesus will wipe away every tear. The Good News of the Gospel is that Jesus really does turn weeping into joy:
Sing to the Lord, you his faithful ones, and praise his holy name. 5 For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor, a lifetime. Weeping may stay overnight, but there is joy in the morning. Psalms 30:4-5
Like the host of heavenly angels of that first Christmas morning, we shout the joyful declaration of Jesus’ great work in the world on behalf of the world. But in a way the angels never can, we also raise the shout of victory as a personal testimony of his transforming work in us.
In his finished work on the Cross, Jesus moves us from death to life and shows us the divine favor of his personal and eternal presence.
Grieve loss, but refuse to let trouble and despair wrap around your heart. Jesus is preparing a place for us and he will come again and receive us to himself. So even if it’s through tears, come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord!