Holiday Anxiety
Christ in The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1633
Our anxiety often surges and peaks just before Christmas. So much to do, so much to do, the panic insists, growing visible by the day. Our soul is worried, too. It fears not the unlit tree or house, not some lack of cookies or parties or presents, but another Christmas lost, another Christmas letdown.
The soul begins to fret. It grows more uneasy as Christmas approaches, agitated by the dischord between the scurrying efforts at neat Christmas piles in festive rooms of rousing din, and its own need for stillness, for plain and open silence. Every year, the soul must compete with the dizzying spirit of the world's Christmas, that frantic month of shopping, decorating, wrapping and eating. But the soul is not fooled. It knows these things cannot ready it for Christmas, that anticipated event which means everything to it.
For the soul knows—even as we forget—that Christ is coming, that it must prepare itself for Him, or risk the most crushing loss, the most terrible of withdrawls. The soul has learned, by now, that the inflated buzz of the world's Christmas will wear off, too fast, leaving it only empty again, lonely and sad.
And yet, by its very nature, it cannot help but look ahead with great hope to Christmas—not to the Christmas which concludes on the 25th, or shortly after, when the world declares Christmas "over," when the last shiny gift is exchanged, the plates are empty and the merry music ceases, the tree and lights come down, and the obligatory family gatherings are over—but the Christmas which only just begins then, on the Blessed Nativity of the Lord, bringing with it that season of renewed joy and peace the distressed soul so desperately craves. But what room, what gift, has it made ready for Him?
Yes, the soul that has not prepared to welcome Him is an anxious one. It knows its own interior room is unfit, undecorated for the coming of an infant King. It knows—even if we insist otherwise—that it should be preparing first, and foremost, for the birth of Christ, the coming of its beloved Savior. For that gentle, coming miracle has been calling out to it, through the tiny, telling cracks in the hustle and bustle of the world's counterfeit Christmas. And the soul, more than anything, longs to respond to His voice, to start out, even now, on that rocky, silent trek across the desert within to go, in search of that dingy stable where the Christ of Christmas waits, again, in the cold, just to be received in its arms, just to be held in the warmth of a long-awaited greeting.
Habbukak 2:20
But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.
Isaiah 4:3-5
A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Philippians 4:4-7
Brothers and sisters:
Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again: rejoice!
Your kindness should be known to all.
The Lord is near.
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
