Keep in mind, I thought I had style then.
My grandmother died about two weeks before Christmas a few years ago.
That’s not exactly a happy way to start any story, especially a Christmas story, but it’s the truth. And if Dickens can start the most famous Christmas story ever written with a death, I suppose I can, too.
I’m not unique in any regard here. There are so many people out there who have to deal with loss and death at Christmas. Never mind the fact that Christmas is a time to get together with family, which inevitably reminds us of the family members who are no longer with us.
And I’m a fairly sentimental person. Fact is, there are few days or weeks when I don’t think about my grandmother. Given that she died around Christmas, it’s even more likely that I’ll be thinking of her this time of year.
I imagine there are several of you who are sitting in a similar situation. Even if you haven’t lost someone, perhaps the Christmas season is hard for another reason.
Even with my grandmother’s death coming around Christmas, I still love this time of year. I love the time with family and the conversations about past memories.
One of my favorite parts of Christmas is the game show that my mother does every year to give us gift cards or other small surprises. One year, she put on her own version of “Deal or No Deal.” We each got an envelope with some amount of money written in it, and we could choose to trade it in for gift cards or cash, or we could keep it.
Most of the family fell away as the big dollar amounts were taken off the board and the deals were going down, but my grandmother and I held firm. In the end, I got $5. She got a nickel.
It was almost admirable, really, the way that she refused to sell her envelope containing a nickel. And now it’s just hilarious that she left the game with what amounts to almost the smallest amount of pocket change one can have. All the same, that was one of our favorite memories of Christmas.
On Christmas Eve, I heard Bruce Springsteen’s version of “Merry Christmas, Baby,” which is absolutely one of my favorite songs. Then there’s the reason why that’s my favorite song. One Christmas, we were driving around town with my grandparents listening to one of the 24/7 Christmas music stations when that song came on.
If you’ve never heard that song, it starts with Bruce repeating the phrase, “I just want to say…” three or four times. When that song came on, my grandmother frustratedly yelled out, “Well I wish he’d just go ahead and say it already!”
Except this. This is all good.
Now I can’t listen to that song without hearing my grandmother’s frustration bubbling up, and it makes me smile every time. That’s the funny thing about those Christmas memories. Sometimes there are funny little stories that remind us of the good stuff, but then we have the sadness that seems to always linger underneath.
I won’t go so far as to say it’s simple to undo all the sadness around Christmas. I won’t give you the trite, “Look for the good in everything,” or the old “Just remember the good times,” because that’s silly. What I will tell you is that the good and the bad is just part of it all.
If you spent this past Christmas just “enduring” the season, then you should know that there has to be some good somewhere. That’s the beauty of this duplicitous reality. It can’t be all bad.
It’s not to say that the bad is non-existent, just that it coexists with the good. That’s been in the fabric of Christmas since the very beginning.
In the story of Jesus’ birth as told in Luke 1, we’re told that God sent the angel Gabriel to tell Mary what was to come.
Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you! ” Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”
Luke 1:28-33 NLT
That’s great news, right?
Yes. It is. There’s no bait-and-switch here.
The interesting thing is that this is the third and final appearance of Gabriel in scripture. We also see him in Daniel 8, giving some much less exciting news.
Daniel has seen some terrifying things in a vision, and now Gabriel is tasked with explaining the vision to him.
“At the end of their rule, when their sin is at its height, a fierce king, a master of intrigue, will rise to power. He will become very strong, but not by his own power. He will cause a shocking amount of destruction and succeed in everything he does. He will destroy powerful leaders and devastate the holy people. He will be a master of deception and will become arrogant; he will destroy many without warning. He will even take on the Prince of princes in battle, but he will be broken, though not by human power.”
Daniel 8:23-25 NLT
To put everything in a happy little nutshell, Gabriel is describing “the time of wrath” to Daniel, a time when some great ruler is going to roll into Israel and wreak havoc on God’s people.
“I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first? Keep in mind, you’ll have to wait about 600 years for the other one.” (Photo by Ramazan Tokay on Unsplash)
That’s not good news, is it? Again, there’s no bait-and-switch, here. It’s definitely not good news.
However, there is a way that bad news can be a good thing. So…I guess there is a little bit of a bait-and-switch.
See, the vision that Gabriel describes doesn’t come true until about 250 years afterwards, in a period of time when God is silent towards His people in Israel. They go from about 400 BC until the birth of Christ with nothing. No prophecies, no instruction, no nothing.
Even with that period of silence, God wanted them to be warned about what was to come. Because God loves His people, He wants them to be prepared for what’s going on.
Okay, so maybe I lied earlier, too. See, the news of Jesus Christ’s birth isn’t all good. Not totally.
I mean, it’s largely good news. You could say it’s totally good news, but there’s a caveat.
It isn’t good news…for everyone.
But thank God! He has made us His captives and continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now He uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?
2 Corinthians 2:14-16 NLT
I know. This is a happy, happy Christmas post.
It started with death and hasn’t really gotten better. But here’s the thing. This passage is referring to an ancient tradition from victorious, conquering armies. After the victory, they would march their captives in the streets, crushing the flowers thrown at their feet and releasing a fragrant aroma. To the victorious crowds and soldiers, that scent was a reminder of victory and triumph. To those who had been captured in war, though, that scent was a reminder of death and despair.
The message of Christ is supposed to be one of joy and hope. A message of freedom.
The bad news comes into play for those who deny and ignore the message of Christ. For them, the birth of Jesus Christ is condemnation. For them, the birth of Jesus is a reminder of the despair and hopelessness of life outside of Christ. There is nothing to celebrate. Not at Christmas, not ever.
Again, I realize that this isn’t a typically happy Christmas message. Maybe that’s why I waited until about a week after Christmas to put it out there. I realize that a lot of people are going to read this and think I’m trying to be mean or hateful.
That’s not my goal at all. My goal is simple. I want to make sure that people understand the dual nature of Christmas. While the birth of Jesus Christ is a beacon of hope, it is also a reminder that we all have to respond to the reality of Jesus Christ. For some, their response will bring hope. For some, their response will bring guilt. Christmas is the season that we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Christmas is also a season fraught with pain for countless people.
That’s life. There’s good and bad in everything.
On the day after Christmas this year, I got a phone call from my dad that one of my mentors growing up had passed away. I was certainly not alone in mourning the death of Coach Hall. He had poured a great deal into my life, but I was just one of many. He had touched so many people.
I won’t deny that there were tears when I found out. I sat in my truck and listened to a sad Beatles song that was next up on the CD I had playing while one solitary drop fell from my eye to the ground.
Honestly, the scene would’ve looked rather melodramatic from a distance.
At Coach Hall’s funeral today, I saw just a glimpse of his impact as more than a thousand people, I believe, came to pay their respects to a man who had meant so much to them. And each and every one of those people heard the Gospel message preached, as Coach Hall certainly wanted them to.
There was quite a bit of bad, and a heavy degree of sadness, in the room with Coach Hall’s passing. But for as much bad as there was, there was far more good. Coach Hall is with the Lord, now, and that is where he belongs. And in his wake, he left countless people’s lives better for having known him.
This one is for you, Coach.
If not for the funeral Sunday afternoon, we may never have realized just how far his impact went. And if not for that funeral Sunday afternoon, some people may have never heard that Gospel message spoken.
That’s life. There’s good and bad in everything.
There are people who will always mourn the loss of loved ones around Christmas. There’s no doubt that Coach Hall’s family will long remember December 26th as a dark day in their history.
From the day we’re born, though, we have a date with destiny. We don’t know when that date is, but we have one. Even as a newborn baby, sitting there in your mother's lap in a blue or pink blanket, you had an expiration date.
That’s life. There’s good and bad in everything.
When Jesus Christ was born, He had a date some 33 years out where He would be placed on a cross to die a tragic, painful, undeserved death.
Good and bad in everything.
Because of that death, we have a hope and a future.
Good and bad in everything.
But if we don’t take Him up on it, then that hope turns to despair as we can only imagine what eternity with God would be like.
There’s good – and bad – in everything.