Christmas: A Season of Longing
In 2010, thirty-three miners in Northern Chile became trapped in a copper and gold mine after a cave-in. They were stranded half a mile below the earth for sixty-nine days. For the first couple weeks, the miners were unable to communicate with the outside world, until mining experts were able to drill a small chute to the trapped miners to send them food and water.
For almost two and a half months, the whole world watched as these thirty-three individuals longed to feel sunlight again. On the sixty-ninth day of being trapped, mining experts were able to drill a chute half a mile into the earth and were able to pull each man, one by one, to safety.
The whole rescue was live-streamed, you can watch it on YouTube. There was this GIANT crowd, full of cheering people waving Chilean flags, gathered to embrace and welcome the miners as they emerged from the chute. A palpable joy encompassed the entire scene as all the despair, anxiety, and stress disappeared as the situation gave way to hope.
I think we often think of Christmas only as a joyous holiday—and it IS a joyous holiday. At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the commencement of God's plan to redeem us from our sins. However, it could also be said that Christmas is a season of expectation and longing. For hundreds of years before the birth of the Messiah, God, through the prophets, promised the advent of a Redeemer who would save the people from their sin and bring peace to the aching, longing hearts of man.
Before there was Mary and Joseph, or shepherds and innkeepers, or baby Jesus in a manger, there was the weight and longing for the Messiah to show up and redeem us from our sin and tangled situations. The reason that the angels were able to bring good tidings of great joy which was good for all people stems from the fact that people had been longing for good tidings of great joy for a long time.
Christmas isn’t a story to distract us from all the darkness in the world, it is God’s answer to that darkness.
It is possible that for you, as we approach this season, it doesn't feel like Christmas this year. Maybe when you look at the landscape that is called “your life,” right now all you see is the rubble and shrapnel of the situations and relationships that didn't go as you planned. Maybe you are looking at the state of your heart and you feel burdened and discouraged. Perhaps right now as you look at your life, your prayers are filled with, “How long, oh Lord?”
“How long until l I heal?”
“Can you break me free of this?”
“When will my family be fixed?”
“When will my child be healthy?”
“When will this night be over?”
Maybe today you feel like those miners stranded half a mile under the surface waiting for rescue.
If that is you, Christmas is for you. Christ came to fulfill the hopes and longings of His people, then and now. Just as the miners emerged from the ground against all hope, so Jesus emerged into the darkness of our world to bring hope. The story of Christmas proclaims that no matter how thick the darkness that presses in on us, it must give way to the light of Jesus.
