Christmas: You’re Not Alone
This has been a grueling year. As I write this, I have a friend who will very likely spend Christmas in the ICU from a combination of COVID and pneumonia. Nearly a third of a million Americans are dead from this virus, and the global death toll just passed 1.7 million. That’s a lot of suffering for one year. Along with all the direct impact, the public efforts to cope with the virus have caused their own chaos. Jobs were lost. Countless small businesses were destroyed. Study after study reported a massive increase in mental disorders, from garden variety anxiety to addictive behaviors to suicidal ideation to the trauma of domestic abuse. Infected or not, our entire culture suffers from this pandemic.
Neuroscientists have made a lot of strides over the past century, and we know more about the biochemistry of mental disorders than we ever have before. Effective medications and treatments have been discovered and developed that can help with many disorders. This science, however, often appears strange or maybe even unnecessary to those with healthy brains. Unlike physical disorders or illnesses that you can see, mental disorders manifest as “bad” behavior, destructive attitudes, or peculiar obsessions. The mentally healthy want to say, “Just stop doing that,” but it’s never that simple.
Unrecognized or untreated, mental disorders leave us vulnerable to believing lies, lies we tell ourselves, lies the culture wants us to believe, and sometimes lies from the devil himself. We might convince ourselves that people are out to get us. We might come to doubt or even hate the things most precious to us, our families and our God. We might even think the only way to end our suffering is to end it all. We look for people to blame. We find comfort in grand conspiracies rather than facing the ugly realities right in front of us. We think, if only our circumstances changed, we could finally be happy.
On this fraught COVID Christmas, it hardly seems like a season to celebrate.
And that’s why we must celebrate the truth of Christmas all the more in this miserable year. Into our world of fear and suffering, Matthew reminds us of the great prophecy, “they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us)” (Matt. 1:23, ESV). God is with us. We’re not alone. We’re not alone in any of this mess. We’re not alone in the agony of a chaotic mind. We’re not alone in our depression or fear or sorrow. God is with us.
Now, because of that Bethlehem night, God has become one of us. Our God’s solution to the problem of suffering is radical: He came and suffered along with us and through that suffering redeemed the world. Remember all those times in the Bible when Jesus laughed? No? Well, maybe you remember all the times he cried instead. He wept at the grave of his friend. He cried at a culture so far from God. He cried in pain as he died on the cross. We are not alone in our sorrow. God cried too.
If you’re struggling right now, reach out for help. There’s no shame in a broken arm, and there’s no shame in a messed up brain. Don’t listen to the lies. You don’t have to suffer alone.
Immanuel. God with us. That is a reason to celebrate.
That is joy to the world.
Have you read my book? You should check that out too!
