Matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers – Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Not Alone on the Journey
I participated in a Blue Christmas service last night. This service was especially for people who feel disconnected from the holiday, for any number of reasons. Yes, grieving, but also losses. Fear, anxiety, anger. Any one of a number of negative feelings.
There was a time of sharing in the service, and several people mentioned feeling lonely. Even desperately lonely, even though they were in the midst of a crowd of people.
Have you ever felt that way? (I know I have.) Even though you knew the people surrounding you, there was a disconnect. A separation. A desperate loneliness …
That’s what it’s like in this fallen world. Disconnected and separated from each other, fighting, bickering, misunderstanding, jealousy, anger, fear. (And that’s just considering one representative person and their extended family.) Imagine that experience multiplied countless times. Now you are starting to realize the magnitude of the sadness, of the difficulty the God of love had in reconciling the world.
Henri Nouwen mentioned the mystery of Christmas “that continues to give us comfort and consolation; we are not alone on our journey.” [1] That is one big reason why God became man, why God emptied Himself and became a tiny baby named Jesus.
How unimaginable—that the God who created heaven and earth, who holds the universe between the span of the fingers on one hand, could empty Godself of all God-ness. How amazing. How miraculous. Jesus came to journey with us through life, to walk and talk and sit by our sides. So we wouldn’t ever be lonely again.
It is almost Christmas. Almost here. Emmanuel, God with us. Come, Lord Jesus! Maranatha!
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[1] Advent and Christmas: Wisdom from Henri J. M. Nouwen (Linguori, Missouri: Redemptorist Pastoral Publications, 2004), 48.
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