Blue Christmas Service 2017 On Christmas Eve churches everywhere will be filled with happy people. The lights will be turned up bright, the poinsettias neatly arranged, men will sport ties they wouldn’t dream of wearing any other time, and the smiles of all will be wide. People will gather and sing the traditional carols, hear the Christmas story, and light candles. Millions on Christmas Eve night will stand and sing “Joy to the World.” Many of those same people who will sing on Christmas Eve will go to bed tonight and face the longest night of the year in despair. We are here today at this service because we know the only road through the darkness into the light, the only way to go over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house or wherever we need to be for Christmas is through the honesty of tears and grief. And we know that honesty about our feelings and not a mask of smiles and a façade of cheer is the only way to find true, deep, and profound joy. For hundreds, indeed thousands of years, ancient people gathered on this night as the darkness threatened to overtake the light. We don’t wonder as the ancients did if the sun will die and fail to return. Yet we still do wonder: Will darkness overshadow our lives, or will light come to renew us and cheer us? As we lie down tonight and ask, “Where is the joy?” we must not be afraid to name our own darkness and fear and grief. For people that are hurting, struggling, or mourning, the longest night of the year is so very long.
Tomorrow would be my mother’s birthday. Although she has been dead for more than half a century, Christmas has never been the same without her. I miss her smile. I miss her words of wisdom. I miss her so much, and the night is so very long.
There is someone who is saying: For the last 53 Christmases I have been with my husband. He held me in his arms as we watched the children, then the grandchildren, open their presents. He made hot cocoa every Christmas morning. I do not even know the recipe, and the night is so very long.
There is a young woman out there who mourns: The onesies I got for Christmas last year as I awaited the birth of our first child are put in a box in the attic. Never worn. I miss my child. I never held him in my arms, and the night is so very long.
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For many the bills have not been paid, debt is mounting, and work has been hard to come by. It won’t be much of a Christmas for the children.
The night can be so very long. The night can be so very dark and cold. Some say that everything happens for a reason. God is in control, and has a plan. But what kind of God would plan such things? Is this the God that I am supposed to celebrate? Is this the God that I am supposed to worship? How can I sing “Joy to the World,” when there is no joy in my own heart? I don’t think that everything happens for a reason. I think there are terrible things that happen every day that God did not plan. If it were not so, why then would Jesus ask us to pray for God’s will to be done, for clearly it isn’t? I also think that God gives us the power and the grace to overcome even the worst that can happen. God gives us the chance to heal and be healed; to feed and be fed; to love and be loved. Christmas does not mean everything is okay. Christmas does not end the sadness, the pain or the despair. For those that are hurting at Christmas, I hope you know that you are not alone. I do not offer you simple platitudes. I do not offer you easy answers. All I can offer you is Christ’s love. Tonight will be the longest night of the year. Take this time, and claim it, but do not linger here. Know that tomorrow the night will be shorter. Know that soon, the light of God will break through. Know that on that first Christmas, God broke through the chaos. Know that on that first Christmas, God came to us so that we may have abundant life and eternal life. We gather here today to acknowledge that our pain is real. We acknowledge that death has its place in the world, but it is not in a place of triumph. Death has been swallowed up in victory. I will end with end with a prayer by a woman who knows the joyful melancholy that so many of us experience. “Oh God, such a loss! Such a keen and searing pain. Even when I am in a crowded room, there is a loneliness I never knew existed. Comforting God, I have turned to you so many times for solace, and I come again. While the world is bright and sparkling, my heart feels leaden and has an emptiness that cannot be filled. Lord, how can I enter into this season of joy? In my head I celebrate your birth into this world, but in my everyday life, I
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am filled with a grief that runs so very deep. You blessed me with a loving relationship and now it is gone from my life. How can I be faithful to that love and the memory of that love, for my sorrow in this season of "Rejoice!” runs so very deep? “Tears are so close to the surface all the time and helpful friends who want to "keep me busy" don't seem to understand that I need to embrace my grief. I am afraid of letting go of the sadness and losing the deep love connection I had. I ponder the name Emmanuel and know that it means "God with us." With us. With me, in this world, in my sorrow. If I look beyond my pain, I know that you, too, suffered so much in this world. I never understood so clearly before that Emmanuel is what your nativity is really all about. You are in my world, in my pain. Thank you, Lord, for the loved one you blessed my life with. Grant me now in my grief, a peace. Give me a comfort that might not make the tears go away, but that lets me feel your presence as you take up a place deep in my heart, with me.” Amen.