by Steve Van Winkle
“Life’s just sad.”
These are words spoken to me by a former church member. The occasion belied the melancholy of the message, as people around us were laughing and eating and chatting at the party we attended several years ago.
I looked at him a little blankly while my mind raced to decide whether his statement was true.
“I mean, the older you get,” he said, “the farther the fall, and the closer you come to the end.”
He was right. My brain ran through all the scenarios in life common to everyone and determined that all of them came up sad in the end.
We anticipate graduating, but we say goodbye to friends, often for the rest of our lives. We celebrate a new job or promotion, but personal obsolescence looms just over the horizon where our replacements, trained in new ways, nomenclature, and technology await.
Little humans are often born of happy marriages. Sons and daughters scurry across living rooms to greet us at the door and roll carelessly on grass carpeting a yard; to our delight, they know no sensible limits to exuberance over the most trivial knowledge or cheapest gifts. Then, just when we begin to enjoy them as friends, they usually look out that door and beyond that lovely yard and leave behind the trinkets and toys and wonder gifted them in their childhood to find a life of their own.
And, the marriages that gave us such miracles, that began in hope and successfully navigated life’s hardships and blossomed throughout a lifetime, all end with the sadness of separation previewed in the vows that bound the couple in the beginning. Death ultimately does us all part.
This truth was driven home to me only a few months ago.
I have a rare kind of friend, the kind who grows up with you. His name is John L. Smith. Seriously. I’ve known him since I was in kindergarten and his house was a staple throughout my childhood.
Within that house were parents who were as stable as boulders. The strength of their marriage was never discussed because it was never in question; they were the kind of people who seemed to have been born married.
Finally, a few years back, the only thing that could end their marriage found Smith’s dad, Herb. With his death, a vow spanning decades was fulfilled.
While delivering my daughter to college in Phoenix this late summer, I had the chance to visit Darlene, Herb’s widow. I hadn’t actually talked to her for years, and, catching up, she spoke to me in a way I hesitate to characterize for fear of being misunderstood.
She spoke to me normally. By this, I mean she wasn’t Smith’s mom talking to a friend of his, nor was she an “elder” spewing proverbs and platitudes to an ungrateful youth.
While speaking so, Darlene uttered one of the most profound things I have ever heard. Recalling how life had changed after Herb’s death, she said she never realized all the mundane necessities he kept tidy until his absence forced them on her.
Then she revealed a discovery that froze me. Darlene said she also found she could no longer finish the stories she had always shared with people.
“What?” I asked.
“Our stories. When I play cards or games with people, I tried to tell them stories about my family or funny things that have happened, and I found I couldn’t finish them. And then I realized the parts I couldn’t recollect were the parts of the story Herb always told; we always tag-teamed telling stories.”
Death had taken more than her husband; it ripped away parts of her she continued to discover missing years later. Emotions began to pool in my eyes, and I didn’t speak for fear they might embarrassingly leak out.
“I’ve grown so used to him telling those parts, I didn’t know how to, so they just ended.”
I noticed something about her at that moment. Having just relayed one of the saddest things I had ever heard, she did so with a thin, faraway smile I found puzzling, contradictory, even.
The German poet Friedrich Von Schiller once wrote:
“Only wholeness leads to clarity,
And truth lies in the abyss.”
I felt like I had just peered over the edge of the abyss and couldn’t escape the truth that the farther you go in life, the more you discover that every joy is, in fact, barbed with sadness …
Which is something Mary learned in a way similar to the wet blanket thrown over my perspective at that party years ago.
The second chapter of the Gospel of Luke is most noted, I suspect, for the nativity account, or what we would call the Christmas story. Over the years, I’ve written what seems like endless recollections and reflections about the watershed event in all of human history.
Philip Yancey first alerted me to the forgotten events that accompanied the glow of heavenly light and stanzas of angelic praise. In particular, I remember him writing of Herod’s order to kill all the children two years old and under in a psychopathic bid to thwart God’s eternal plan of salvation.
He reminded his readers of the name history had assigned to that tragedy: “The Slaughter of the Innocents.” Then, Yancey rightly recounted how Christmas has been largely sterilized for our consumption, whether for the sake of idealism or capitalism. (See the painting and sidebar at right.)
“Greatest Hits” are sold unchallenged by “Biggest Flops,” and there’s a reason we’re often shown “highlights” of something and never “lowlights.” Full-disclosure can be very inconvenient.
The highlights of Christmas all of us know are the soft comforters we sink into easily. Engaging this season is like coming home and being warmed by a familiar fire. The lowlights of the holiday, however, could drive Billy Sunday to the nearest tavern.
Mary was given warning.
Luke two is indeed the chapter of otherworldly visitation and indescribable good news of great joy. Luke two is the warm comforter wrapping us in familiar hope, warming us with paeans of peace. At least, the first part of Luke two. The entire second half of the chapter chills human decency to the bone.
It relates a moment in Mary’s life at Christmas plus 40 days. We’re taken into the Temple where she and Joseph have come with their newborn Son for the required purification rites.
They’ve arrived with their meager offering of two doves, indicative of the poverty we’ve come to associate with a meek Savior. It’s here, in this Temple, the Christmas narrative continues with even more joy ladled upon the young family.
Only six weeks or so have passed since this couple was visited by lowly strangers smelling of sheep and speaking of wonders seen and heard in a clear night’s sky. On this day, however, Joseph and Mary come to the Temple in their usual obscurity, when an old man interrupts their ordinary journey with an encounter that defies description.
Luke says this man, Simeon, was devout and given a special assurance, namely that he wouldn’t depart the earth before seeing “the Lord’s Christ.” With Mary, Joseph, and Jesus coming to the Temple, the Holy Ghost reveals the day has come.
I have always dwelt on this encounter. I see an elderly man, rather frail and slow moving and usually looking vaguely unaware. On this day, he’s different; he steps up into the courts of the Temple with purpose, looking for someone, attentive to the guidance of an unheard voice.
Then, through the haze and dust of the morning, his gaze fixes upon Mary and Joseph. He approaches them anxiously, yet cautiously, transfixed all the while at the wad of blankets insulating their baby.
Reaching his arms out to take the child, he stops himself, withdraws his arms slightly, and looks up at the mother holding her child. Simeon’s eyes ask permission to take Jesus from her; Mary gingerly holds out the bundle while Joseph takes a nervous step forward.
I hear an involuntary chuckle and see a tear well up in his eyes when he finally beholds the face of the Lord’s Christ. Simeon stares at the child for a few precious seconds; he speaks.
His words are grandiose, and my only vision of Mary’s face as she hears them is as if she received a blank check written on an account filled with joy. Simeon tells God he is now happy to depart this earth in peace, having seen the salvation he longed to behold.
Her son — it is her Son he speaks of when Simeon exclaims he has now seen God’s salvation. It is the salvation first mentioned in Genesis, illustrated in every sacrificial lamb of the Old Testament and reaffirmed by a cadre of prophets throughout the centuries.
Mary’s son, he says, is the climax of all God has been working toward for thousands of years. Her son, whom she now cradles in her arms, has indeed met the “hopes and fears of all the years.”
In terms of treasures, none could be greater; in terms of purpose, none could be higher; in terms of longing and anticipation, none could be deeper. And all of it was spoken over her little baby boy.
Happiness, perhaps even pride, must have warmed her heart listening to his words. Then, Luke says, this godly old man blessed them.
But, he wasn’t finished.
It’s here I see Mary’s exultation turn to gravity; when he looks up to speak directly to her, his cadence and tone changes. His numb voice reluctantly warns this young mother her son will face a difficult life and not everyone will receive him so happily.
But, the words contained in parentheses in verse 35 must have been the most foreboding of all for her to hear: “Yea, Simeon said, ‘and a sword shall pierce through your own soul also.’”
Gone now are the bright words of hope and satisfaction of fulfillment. The herald on this day is far from angels proclaiming peace and good will; rather, it is a lonely old man graphically warning of a coming pain that will sear and wound Mary’s soul.
Mary’s countenance falls instantly from eager reception to strained uncertainty punctuated by horror. She has found that other side of Christmas where innocents are massacred and dreams mingle with nightmares; it’s where people stand breathless trying to take in how life can serve up indescribable joy with a check exacting unplumbed sorrow for the pleasure.
These events and these words are as much a part of the full disclosure of Christmas as Shepherds and dreams and celestial visitations. It’s all Christmas, full-disclosure Christmas.
And, those familiar with the life of Jesus know Simeon’s words to be true: At Jesus’ respectful, but unmistakably distant, calling of his mother “Woman” in Cana you sense the tip of Simeon’s sword pierce a mom’s soul. Coming to see her beloved son, Simeon’s blade must have sunk deeper when she hears Jesus ask who his mother and brothers and sisters really are. When we see Mary at the foot of her son’s cross 30-some years after His glorious birth, no one can deny feeling her soul, like any mother’s, has finally slumped over, dead from long, varied, and crescendoing sadness.
It’s Christmas. Like the job you’ll soon be too old for or the baby you’ll one day watch walk out the door or the wedding that ultimately ends in the house of mourning, Christmas was ushered into our world on the wings of joy and the songs of eternity, encouraging all people to recognize, celebrate, and worship the incarnation of God’s son, our Savior.
It ends on a cross in blood and mud and irredeemable treachery. And, like life, once you look hard at it, it’s just sad.
But.
For almost 15 years or so, I’ve laid bare my recollections and musings on this season; let me end with one more.
Somewhere along the way, when I was a kid, my mom developed a Christmas habit of saving one Christmas gift for last. This gift wasn’t laid under the tree with the others we had been ogling for a couple weeks; she typically fetched this present from its hiding place once our expressions reflected a grim realization that Christmas Present had slipped into Christmas Past.
As the finale, this gift was always the best, but, more importantly to us, it extended Christmas a few more precious minutes. Holding back the biggest gift for last, my mom suspended our disappointment from sensing the best was now behind us.
Like Christmases in our home on various streets in Lincoln, NE, Christmas itself has one last gift for those in dark places. I have to believe it’s the gift Mary latched onto, because I can’t conceive of another means by which her sanity remained intact.
Maybe the splendor and wonder of the first Christmas is exalted so much in hopes of drowning out the hard edges we don’t care to relive. But, what is strange is that, like Christmas Eves with one last Christmas gift squirreled away by my mom, Christmas itself holds something — not so much back — as it does in trust.
It’s the Last Christmas Gift of the first Christmas.
Oh, we revel in the magnificence with which Christ’s birth was announced and we cherish the memories it has given us over a lifetime, but the Last Christmas Gift is something you won’t find in memories or under a tree or even in Luke chapter two, yet it’s the most priceless of them all.
It’s the gift of a happy ending.
Which sounds trite, I know. The Bible has fewer tight little explanations for big questions than most Christians realize; however, in one compact sentence, the writer of Hebrews declares how Jesus was able to endure the sadness His life generated:
Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith; Who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).
The baby born in Bethlehem and whose life set the table for a feast of sorrow in the lives of those who loved him, saw beyond the moment of tears to a greater joy. It was joy in the end — the joy set before Him — that propelled His affections beyond the cross to the joyful reunion with God in a city soon to be filled with family.
It must have been the joy Mary clung to through the manifold waves of sadness throughout her life. What mother could ever persevere through the reality of her divine son’s nature and brutality of his enemies without hope that the last gift of his birth would be worth the pain along the way?
It’s the Last Christmas Gift. The gift of an assured happy ending.
And, we see shadows of this gift throughout life: Maybe graduation separates us from college friends, but it paves fresh avenues for new ones. Our vocational effectiveness may wane as life unfolds, but we find there are better things to spend 40 hours on in a week. The feeling of loss associated with children departing to forge their own lives is often salved by anticipated new additions to families.
And, the happy marriages that bind two people so tightly that one cannot finish a story without the other nearby, may end on earth with the appointment we all must keep. But, the Last Christmas Gift, held in trust by the Father, brings reunion; it is His promise that, in knowing His son, we actually “lose” no one.
This Last Christmas Gift explains the smile Smith’s mom wore while speaking of sadness we all hope doesn’t actually exist. It’s more than fond memories of what once was — this last gift of Christmas is the assurance of what is yet to come.
We all understand life ends the same for everyone. In Ecclesiastes two and nine, Solomon sized up people and their situations and concluded that no matter what we enjoy or build, regardless of how we live or of the wisdom we pass on, “one event” happens to us all.
For people willing to peek over the abyss, this one event mutes the joys and celebrations and love of a lifetime.
But, there’s one Last Christmas Gift held in trust. It’s not sung by a heavenly host, and it has never invaded a night sky with holy brilliance. It was unknown to Solomon when he lamented the evils he had seen. And, so many people today endure life’s inevitable sad notes with cheap tokens of happiness and empty expressions of peace while this Last Christmas Gift sits, unnoticed and unopened on their laps.
The Last Christmas Gift was the heart of the joy set before Christ on the cross; it was the balm that triaged the mortal laceration of Simeon’s sword in Mary’s soul. In one broad, bold stroke, it wipes away life’s accumulated sorrow.
The Last Christmas Gift is revealed in the familiar carol’s refrain, namely that Christ was “born that man no more may die.” The Last Christmas Gift is the happy ending attending eternal life.
My former church member was right, unfortunately, when he observed with Von Schiller’s mercenary clarity that life, indeed, is just sad. What makes it ultimately sad is the inevitable end the last enemy brings to us all.
There are many who choose to see life as it dares us not to, with all the sorrow and misery lurking behind every droplet of joy. But, if Christmas gives us anything meaningful, it is the gift that doesn’t deny the sadness so much as it defeats it, that keeps all of us from believing the best is now behind us.
I want to leave them, and all of us, with this gift that the Father has stewarded away for the end, when we need it most. May we all let Christmas chase life’s encroaching sadness away with the only gift that redeems life by overcoming death with beautiful, eternal life. It’s the best gift of all.
Indeed, it’s the Last Christmas Gift.