Joy To The World

Maybe I can blame it on low blood sugar. Or high blood sugar. I get those two mixed up. Does eating too much chocolate make you cry or does crying make you eat too much chocolate? This is as philosophical as it gets, I know.

Clearly, there’s too little clarity here. Just a lot of crying.

And that’s not right. It’s the wrong time of year for crying. This is the “hap - happiest season of all.” “The most wonderful time of the year.” I used to keep myself insulated from pain this time of year. Once Hallmark and Hobby Lobby opened their Pandora boxes of Christmas ribbon and fake snow, I put on my red and green blinders and refused to look at anything that didn’t scream “Happy Holidays!” I wanted my Christmas, and I wouldn’t let anything ruin it for me.

You know my family has suffered a tremendous loss this year. In February, my Rob succumbed to covid and Jesus gathered him into His arms. We let him go. We had to. In a few days it will be ten months since I last held Rob’s hand. I’ve been making my way through all the “firsts” ever since. The first Valentine’s Day without my true love. The first Easter. All our birthdays. Our anniversary. Last month was Thanksgiving. In less than two weeks, Christmas. None of them have felt the same without Rob.

We’re not alone in our loss. In fact, we are surrounded by so much suffering I’ve begun to wonder if we have any right to celebrate anything anymore. A friend lost her son soon after Rob died. Several firefighters have lost their cancer battles this year, men my son-in-law worked with. Another friend’s son, a father with young children, has a terminal diagnosis. More friends of Rob’s parents have passed this fall. Multiple friends of mine have endured their own covid crises, some of them hospitalized, most surviving after strenuous battles, while others still fight in ICU. And that doesn’t take into account the wearying state of the world as we each determine how best to navigate an abnormal normal. Always, as Jesus foretold, there are wars and rumors of wars. Weather peculiarities have been so frequent, they’re becoming the norm. Yesterday the worst tornado on record scoured America’s heartland and tonight close to one hundred families are grieving the loss of people they loved. Our son and his family in Kentucky were spared. Others were not. At Christmas.

How, under the low hanging clouds of sorrow, can we dare allow joy in any measure to invade our lives? How dare we sing of Joy To The World?

I took my daughter and her family to see a play this afternoon. My son loves this story, too, and quotes the unexpected heroine on social media every Christmas morn. Katy read “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” to her children (and me) a couple of weeks ago, so when we found out a local children’s theater group was performing a musical rendition of it today, I bought tickets. We needed some laughter and hope in a season that has arrived with heartbreak. The story of a rowdy group of outcast siblings who invade the sanctimonious performance of a local church’s annual Christmas play is hilarious on its own. But when the new arrivals steal the show with their own startling realization that the baby in the manger is just like them, tradition and ego are tossed out like discarded wrapping paper and the ground beneath the cradle proves level. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

“Hey!” Imogene Herdman yelled with genuine enthusiasm, her halo askew and her face smattered with dirt. “Unto you a Child is born!” She wasn’t your ordinary, everyday angel. But it wasn’t an ordinary, everyday newborn either. Babies arrive wrapped in hope, little miracles that remind us not to give up.

Here on the mini-farm where two sheep, two dogs, one tortoise, and multiple chickens reside, there are also three little pigs. Appropriate, right? One male and two females: Boris, Natasha, and Maggie. Boris and Natasha became parents early this morning. The timing was incredible. After weeks of speculation about whether Natasha was eating like a pig or just eating for two (or ten), close inspection yesterday revealed that the little lady was about to become a mother. Boris and Maggie were ousted from their family’s enclosure, the pig pen was mucked out, fresh hay brought in, a heat lamp set up, and though no one knew the timing, everyone prepared and waited. For a minute.

This morning I wandered out to see the little ones after reading the proclamation of their birth in an excited text message. There inside a small stable, surrounded by warm hay, Natasha lay resting while the newborns, Dasher and Dancer (well, it is Christmas), brother and sister, enjoyed their first ever breakfast. Baby pigs are almost as cute as baby goats. The Brady Farm has birthed quite a number of animals over the years, but this is the first time I’ve been here to witness such fresh arrivals.

Last night, surprised as we all were by the delightful news that baby animals would soon be born, I told Katy, “New life is always wonderful.”  Death has paid too many visits to us and our family, our friends, and our world this year. Though my shattered heart recovers slowly, even I felt it—a tiny sparkle of joy at the news that soon we would have a reason to celebrate the miracle of life again. I was caught off-guard by the thrill I felt. I guess even in frightening, uncertain times, Carl Sandburg continues to be right. “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.” Even if the baby belongs to a pig named Natasha.

While the world, whether corporately or personally, may appear to have plunged into total darkness, it has not. Because unto us a Child was born—the Life, the apostle John said, that is the Light of men. And the Light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness has never overpowered it.

And it never will. Finally, after a year of horror, a sparkle of hope invades my heart, and I remember again that love always wins.

Hey! Unto you a Child is born!