By Drew Williams
I confess that I am indeed one of those people who actually likes the Christmas holiday including all the build-up. I like it a lot!
So, not surprisingly, for well over twenty years of ministry I have thrown myself into preparations for Christmas with zealous abandon. For me, the more spectacular the better! You just can’t have too many candles. In my time, I have destroyed church carpets with candle wax, and made Nativity movies with kids dressed as angels — defying gravity via a large trampoline. I have masterminded the arrival of three wise men arriving at church in a vintage yellow Rolls Royce. I have deployed puppets, mass choirs, big bands, orchestras, live sheep (and learned not to mix live sheep with live six-year-old boys in bathrobes and crooks!). One year I pumped electrical power into an 11th century church from the 14th century local inn to illuminate vast 21st century jumbotron screens. In truth, I secretly imagined that I practically ran the Christmas holiday. And then a few years back I got sick — and I found myself unceremoniously benched.
Maybe you can identify with that feeling. Perhaps there are currently circumstances in your life that make you feel removed from the holidays? You may feel that you have no desire for Christmas whatsoever and the sooner it is over the better! I think, if we are honest, that we all feel like this from time to time. But from my place on the sideline, seemingly miles always from all the anticipation and build up to Christmas, I was surprised to find myself closer to the heart of advent and Christmas than I ever thought possible.
On my bench, with nothing to do, I decided to read through the entire works of C. S. Lewis — of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe fame. Here was this great theologian who had had no plan and absolutely no desire to find God. When he was not yet 10 years old, C. S. Lewis was crushed by the unexpected loss of his mother to cancer. Later he would say that her death left a dead place in his heart that caused him to be disillusioned about God’s nearness. At age 18, when asked about his religious views he called the worship of Christ and the Christian faith itself “one mythology among many.” By the time he was barely 20, having served in the British Army on the frontlines of France during World War I and begun his studies at Oxford University, he was an avowed atheist.
In 1925 C. S. Lewis was appointed English Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, where he tutored English Language and Literature. In the ensuing years he made two close friends on the English faculty, namely Hugo Dyson and J.R.R. Tolkien. Both of these men challenged Lewis’s heart regarding the reality of God — not that Lewis was seeking God. Later Lewis would say that he didn’t really want to find Him. He wrote, “Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about ‘man’s search for God.’ To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse’s search for the cat.” As it turned out, God was seeking C. S. Lewis, and He found him.
It is curious how shepherds were not actually out in the fields looking for God. An angel of the Lord came to them and declared, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:11). And then, just in case we may think this was a rogue or lost angel, the heavens open…“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 among those with whom He is pleased!’” (Luke 2:13-14).
In that year of sickness, I was airlifted out of the fray and actually found myself in a place of peace, through no effort of my own — actually, very much despite myself! I had wrongly presumed that, as I could not engage in the season as I usually did, I was therefore precluded from encountering God. No mass choir, no sheep, no candles — just a bench! But it turned out that God came to me. Even and especially on that bench, He came to me.
It is, and will always be, about His initiative — His journey to us. It is always “unto us” even when we feel we cannot get to Him. When I come to think of it, over the years I have never met anyone who finds God by simply deciding to develop faith and then carrying out their plan. Everyone in some way or another describes it as “being found by God.” So, in all your preparations this year, know that God is taking His initiative in your life. There are no circumstances that preclude His comfort, His peace, His healing or His presence.
That said, to find myself sidelined from the Christmas festivities was a bit of a setback. In an attempt to cheer myself up I kept the family’s annual tradition of reliving Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. Why does this film have such an enduring appeal? Is it because we so deeply empathize with George as his life’s dreams appear to pass him by? George Bailey is the guy who is going places: “I’m shakin’ the dust of this crummy little town….I’m gonna build things. I’m gonna build airfields, I’m gonna build skyscrapers a hundred stories high, I’m gonna build bridges a mile long…” But George’s big dream is beset with setback after setback, again and again and again. As we pick our way through the debris of George’s shattered dreams you might think that all there is is rubble. But as you examine each of these setbacks more closely you discover a trail of grace. George’s setbacks and disappointments are transformed into stepping stones toward an unimaginably bigger hope and future — both for him and the entire town of Bedford Falls.
If you think about it, the original Christmas Eve could hardly have looked like a major victory! “You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger…” (Luke 2:12). That God should take on our frail flesh and be born into straw poverty feels like something of a divine setback. And yet, because we know the end of the story, we see that it was actually one of God’s most successful setbacks!
With God, isn’t it often true that the way up is down? The way forward is backward. The way to life is through divinely appointed — or at least “divinely adopted” — setbacks. Each one of us has setbacks and disappointments. And no matter who we are or how deep our particular setback or darkness this Christmastide — facing the end of a relationship, the loss of a friend or relative, financial struggles — they don’t go away over Christmas. We think that, somehow, they should be all patched up in advance — that somehow to enter into the fullness of the joy of Christmas our life should be “setback” free.
The good news broadcast over the skies of Bethlehem to some startled shepherds is that God Himself enters our darkness and is with us. The very darkness or setback we think disqualifies us from Christmas can actually become the place where the light of Christ shines brightest. May His light fill your lives and all your preparations and festivities this year!
