The shortest of days, the longest of nights

Today is the winter's solstice, that annual day when we experience the shortest of days in the year and the longest of nights.  The afternoons end in darkness, and in the morning, the dawn sleeps in. 

The darkest of days, indeed.

Surrounded by holiday cheer and glitter, so many of us are overwhelmed by utter darkness in our own lives or those around us.  You may be one of them. 


But we are not stuck forever in the dark, as in Narnia where for a long while, it was "always winter and never Christmas."  But that was not the end of the story.   Nor ours.

The nights only get shorter from here.

Solstice marks when the darkness begins to be pushed back, the beginning of redemption -- or rather, as we can only see someday in the rearview mirror --the continuation of God's redeeming. 

God is at work. 
     His faithfulness never fails.
Even in the mysteries.
Even in what I cannot understand.
Even in the darkness.

I can be paralyzed by the dark. 
             Or walk with Him through it.

...even the darkness is not dark to You;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with You.

                                Psalm 139. 12

God does not have a night light;
          He has night vision.
 He sees clearly through
     what is unknown and scary to us.
The unknown and dark and difficult
        are not impossible to Him.

"Walk with Me,
          rest easy in dark rooms
               -- and long nights --
and do not be afraid."

What song is this?

My four-year-old granddaughter and I hung out yesterday afternoon.  In my eyes, no spectacular activities were scheduled, but in her world, even drawing with chalk on the driveway, is a special event.

As she was playing with our daughters' old dolls, dressing them up for the day and trying to manage hair that was twenty years an unmanageable mess, I heard her humming little Christmas songs that she had learned in pre-school. 

Awhile later, we dashed over to the public library to return a book that was due.  The public library is a golden magical place to her.  She can play in the children's corner, and like me as a child, she is mesmerized by the number of books surrounding her, all calling out her name.  And she can take any one of them home -- for a few days. 

Yesterday, as I was looking through some books and she was playing with Legos in the children's section, I could hear her -- not a hum, but full fledged singing -- in her sweet pure voice,  "Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born."  She knew the words.  She knew the melody.  It was not even an intentional performance, but bubbling up right from her heart.  No audience necessary.

And as she continued to sing, people went about their library business.  Listening.  And no one even thought about telling her "no singing in the library."  Or even, "you can't sing 'religious' songs in a public place."  But we all enjoyed the music on a cold winter afternoon in a normally silent place.

She was just being herself.

And even in this secular culture with its strict adherence of rules of "you can't do that here," lives of faithfulness and unexpected grace and the good news about Jesus, reverberate from within those who do not just believe in God, but know something different.

For there our captors required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
    "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
How shall we sing the LORD's song
               in a foreign land?

                       Psalm 137. 3-4

Continuously,
       every which way we can.
God has strategically placed us
       in time and location
to do exactly that.
Sometimes grace has words to it,
       but always a melody
       that gets stuck in our hearts.

You never know who is listening.
You never know how God is using you.

Really

I am surrounded by so many friends and family right now who are deeply struggling in this season which is supposed to look like a Hallmark commercial.  And rarely does.

It is not that we need to lower the bar of expectations for what God can do, or turn the definition of God's steadfast hope --on which we can stake our lives-- into a glimmery facade of wishful thinking.

Really, O God?  This too?

The coming of our Savior did not appear either as most expected, no gilded ribbons, glowing candles, the appropriate entry of royalty.  Not as a mighty king who would conquer the Romans, but coming as a tiny baby born in a cold stable in backwater Bethlehem.  Not a king who called for personal power, but a king who called for personal repentance.  Not a religion, but a relationship.

And except for a few shepherds and three wise men who lived some distance away, most missed the great light show that announced His arrival, the unveiling of the gospel, the manifestation of God's faithfulness.

The words have not lost their luster.  The awe is still there.  Even now.

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field,
keeping watch over their flock by night.
And an angel of the Lord appeared to them,
and the glory of the Lord shone around them,
                       and they were filled with fear.
And the angel said to them,
"Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy
             that will be for all the people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David
                      a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
And this will be a sign for you:
you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths
                               and lying in a manger."
And suddenly there was with the angel
a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
"Glory to God in the highest,
   and on earth peace, good will among men."

                                          Luke 2. 8-14

And in that lowly stable among farm animals,
Mary went from  "Really, O God?"
        to "O God, really!"

As it is repeated some 62 times in the book of Ezekiel,
just in case that we miss it,
             "... that you may know that I am the LORD."

And that would be us.

It is not that things are out of control,
    but out of my control,
                  and fully in His.

Things may not look exactly as we want them,
                   or on our schedule,
        but God is at work 
                        even in this,
more profoundly
         that we can ever know.

"Trust Me in this."

...so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
till He has mercy upon us.
                                Psalm 123. 2

Perhaps until we see His mercy
         already surrounding us
in dimensions deeper
                    than our myopic vision.

And God says,  "Really."

There is something different here

The first winter that I knew my friend Claire, we went weekly to the grocery together.  I had a car available as my husband took the train to work. She lived within reasonably walking distance of the store, but bitter cold descended early that year, the Chicago kind of cold that literally sucks the oxygen out of your lungs.  God had strategically placed someone on my path with a specific need. And so, I became the designated driver on our weekly jaunt to get groceries.

As in community with other believers, we all in some way bring something to the table, so to speak.  Each week, we squished three carseats door to door for her two kids and my baby girl in the backseat of my little Subaru.  It helped her to have a ride.  But she blessed me so much more.  She showed me what life looks like, covered lavishly by the gospel.

I absorbed a lot of wisdom that winter, probably unbeknownst to her, things that I still remember about what spiritual life looks like and how it is radically played out in our lives.  Most likely, she remembers none of our conversations.  But I do. You never know what will stick in a person's heart.

In December of that year, in the midst of Advent, I came with my daughter to pick her up for our weekly grocery outing.  There was something very different in what I found.

A table stood front and center just inside the front door of her apartment.  Her nativity set was displayed on it, the first thing I saw as I entered her home, so prominent that I had to skirt around it to come into the apartment.

She saw my perplexed look.  Why would she put the nativity there?

"I want it to be the very first thing someone notices when they come into our home," she said. "There is something different here.  We celebrate Christmas, but the nativity is not a decoration.  It is the very core of Christmas.  I want it to be the first thing people see."

And so, through the years hence, our little nativity is the first thing we set up and in a place where it is first seen.  We celebrate Christmas in all of its glory, but it is not about the decorations and brightly wrapped packages, not about Santa appearing, but Jesus coming.

I noticed this year that the gospel had invaded even unlikely places.  I had placed little nativity sets that we had accumulated like little reminders in unexpected moments of my day, little figurines in glass and wood and plastic, that don't just tell a familiar story, but remind me what all this is about.

In the dining room:

In the kitchen:

And right in front of me on my desk:

As if Jesus is saying, "Don't make it hard for others to find Me."

And she gave birth
    to her firstborn son
and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths
and laid Him in a manger,
because there was no place for them
                  in the inn.

                   Luke 2. 7

A Christ-follower should have the brightest house on the block,
in more ways
               than a string of lights.

Joy to the world
           The Lord has come.

There is something very different here.
    And that would be Jesus.

Let every heart prepare Him room.