Looking for Light in the Shadow of Death

It seems that Christmas is the time when people are at their most hypocritical. They beam smiles back and forth while grief consumes them. For most people, Christmas is anything but merry. It is the time when they remember that their family is not whole, their dead loved ones are but vaporous memories, their love echoed by a thousand betrayals.

More than anything, Christmas is the season of contrasts. Everything that is meant to be celebrated is scorned. I can picture the word irony in tacky little blinking lights.

Even at the heart of Christmas, the manger scene is a study in contrasts: unconquerable life in the midst of death and decay; light piercing darkness; innocence into guilt. Everything beautiful about Christ coming into this world often seems negated by this present darkness. It is especially pronounced on a day of supposed triumph.

Christmas becomes a dividing point between Christians and the rest of the world. For Christians, Christmas imbues pain with purpose; restlessness with resolution; pain with peace; hollow with hope. It points us onward, past a manger, a cross-strewn hill, and an empty tomb to a heavenly city placed upon the earth. For non-Christians, Christmas is littered with disappointment. It is utopia gone ugly--where all the good virtues of man are dashed upon the rocks.

This study is contrasts should provoke its own contrast in the heart of the Christian on Christmas: gratitude and empathy. Thus my day will be innundated with the knowledge of triumphs and travails, and my heart will feed upon my inward tears.