Holiday Blues...

December 24 06 Steve Huber 8 comments

Holiday time/Happy time…Well maybe…

The holidays are so much fun aren’t they? Christmas parties, gift-giving, holiday shopping, going home to see family and old friends

Many of you are truly looking forward to the holiday break….. a relief from the daily grind….. some gifts and levity…. time with your extended family….. extra time with your kids….

But there are probably a lot of you that enter into this season with mixed emotions:

Does it feel like, no matter how you travel (airplane, auto, train) to your family’s house, you always wind up arriving at “dysfunction junction”?

The stress of running around to buy gifts has you completely exhausted. Your parents push your buttons like no one else on the planet (that’s why you stormed out and slammed the screen door like you were in 8th grade again). The fact that it’s freaking dark at 5pm is beginning to make you just plain mad.

You see distant relatives every year and every year it’s awkward and you say to yourself “I really don’t know these people and they really don’t know me”

Maybe the whole thing seems more than a little disappointing year after year, and you relate to the many people who experience post-holiday depression.

I know that I have many great memories from holidays past and that I am someone who very much looks forward to any kind of vacation or break. But I also know that, for me at least, the drive home is always sad. This sadness encompasses everything from “wow—that didn’t quite do it for me. I’m not ready to face normal life again” to instances of realizing “everything that is wrong with our family was displayed and demonstrated in the past 48 hours”.

What do we make of this?

We’ve been preaching on texts from the book Isaiah this past month. Isaiah described and foretold the person and work of Jesus Christ, and he also foretold God’s wrapping up history and God’s eventual cleansing of the whole universe.

At one point, Isaiah describes a coming banquet:
“On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast or rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine
—the best of meats and the finest of wines.
On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all people,
the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces;….” (Isaiah 25:6f)

Plus, Isaiah tells us that God is not going to throw away the earth like a dirty napkin, eventually there will be a new, cleansed universe:
“Behold, I will create a new heaven and a new earth.” (Isaiah 65:17)

The end of all things is described as a party and a feast.

The setting is a new world cleansed of the greed, filth, and pollution that poison so much of who we are and so much of what we see around us.

Celebration, satisfying rest, worship, and joy—- sounds like a holiday, doesn’t it?

What’s this have to do with your holiday blahs??

1) When a holiday or vacation is actually satisfying and pleasant, when you are able to relax and laugh, and eat and rest, and see people you love and who love you—*you know you’ve received a tiny taste of what heaven will be like.*

We know that God is the ultimate source of any and every good thing we have ever experienced.
“You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” (Psalm 16:2)

After these experiences, we should thank God for his kindness in allowing us these tiny tastes of what it will be like to be in a new world with God and with his people!!

Maybe you get sad after holidays because it was good and now it is over.

2) When a holiday or vacation is depressing, unfulfilling, or even deeply painful, we are reminded that this is not all there is.

We are reminded that this world does indeed give us an itch that no holiday can scratch.

We need to look forward in hope, to the greater holiday to come. We need to seek that “rest” which will be truly satisfying. We need to hope for that “newness” which will not fade or wear out. Looking forward to the reunion with God and others that will truly mean a joy that will not end. A holiday without regret or disappointment that truly does satisfy.

So if you are presently annoyed and depressed by the holiday, or if you are already bracing yourself, do one more thing:

Comfort yourself. This is not all there is. Fix your eyes on what God has described and remember his promise:

“I am the LORD; in its time I will do this swiftly.”

December 26 06 Susan Bertolino wrote:

Generally, I dread the holidays and this year was no different. But I’ve learned to take the pressure off myself; I recognize my financial limitations, and some unwanted present from Target will not convey whether I esteem a person or not. This year I feel more in touch with those who are suffering during this holiday. You know why:

1. They are with family members that they cannot communicate with and probably wouldn’t befriend if they had the freedom.

2. We have soldiers at war, demoralized and lonely—some haven’t seen their families in years.

3. We have a prison system that is punitive, not restorative, so Christmas is another day to feel lousy and angry, rather than healed.

4. We live in the richest country in the world, and all our cities have homeless people. That makes no sense. Christmas is a soup kitchen and getting out of the cold.

5. We have divorced families who have to trade off their kids for each day. No one wins here.

I could go on. Christmas has been corrupted by the world belief of consumerism. It needs to be about love, hope and healing. We need the Christ in Christmas. We need him everyday, not just one day.

My two cents.

December 26 06 Ray Ohlinger wrote:

Steve,
Enjoyed reading the blog. Our Advent this year has helped us to be more focused on the reality of Christmas. A friend of mine has been teaching Sunday school on the Globalism and the church calendar. It helped us to reframe our view of Christmas celebration. Good talking with you.

December 26 06 Dave B wrote:

Amen.
Steve, this is a great reminder for me as I’m about 2/3 of the way through my time with the in-laws. The glories of Nashville still leave me yearning for what Isaiah tells of. Even among lots of Christmas presents, eggnog and cable TV, it seems that our conversations, game playing and meals together are seasoned with so much brokenness and dysfunction. It’s amazing that fun time with friends can end up being dominated by gossip and complaining about family or friends who just don’t have it together like me/us. Ugh. God have mercy on me a sinner.

December 27 06 arlene wrote:

steve – thanks for this blog and reminding us all to still give thanks despite all the brokenness everywhere, in and through us. a promise has been given through Christ that all things will be made new. i was really struck by the message from my brother’s church during christmas eve, to say “Merry Christmas” is to give a blessing on each other. but, this blessing has to have the right condition of joy – founded in Christ, not gifts, not holiday cheers. nothing in this earth can ever fill or surpass that joy. He has blessed us by calling us His sons and daughters. for to be cursed, is to be separated from the bosom of God. therefore, there is a proper reason for us to have a joyful celebration of thanksgiving because of this gift that has been bestowed upon us – the riches of joy conditioned through Christ. as we wait and long for restoration, wars to cease, poverty to end, etc. we receive new mercies each day. waiting IS filled with new mercies. HOPE is in the waiting.

December 28 06 Liz K wrote:

Thanks for pointing us to the True Hope. It is good to be reminded of what is to come. And thanks for your sermon on Sunday. How amazing that we get to celebrate the crazy fact that the God and creator of the universe came in the flesh to this messy broken world to save us from our sin. And He cared to do it in way that is so tangible to us…and so awesome…. As the one true God, He could have not saved us or done it in a much different way. So let us rejoice in what is to come; but may God open our eyes to see Him bring light, give life, hold our hand, call us to righteousness, keep His promises, make us our true selves, see His glory, and do this for those who have yet to believe.
Isaiah 42:5-7 (NIV)
“This is what God the Lord says-he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it, I the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”

John 1 (from Eugene Peterson’s The Message)
The Life-Light was the real thing; Every person entering Life he brings into Light. He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn’t even notice. He came to his own people, but they didn’t want him. But whoever did want him, who believed He was who He claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of God selves. These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex begotten. The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.

January 02 07 Jen D wrote:

“waiting IS filled with new mercies. HOPE is in the waiting.” Thanks Arlene. I was driving today up 95 and looked at all the cars and dense traffic around me. What do we all face together today as the new year is upon us? Longings, needs— either met or unfulfilled, new ones or old ones nagging. I took pleasure that our needs do not overwhelm God even at the time of year when He deserves our utmost praise. He intercedes for us while we pine for change and redemption. The drive got easier after that; seeing His hand over & in all things, all our loose ends, frustrations, needs and wants.

January 02 07 elliemae wrote:

thanks arlene for inviting me into this discussion. i don’t know ya’ll, but can relate to some of the discussion here…this is/was my first Christmas w/o my Mom whom I loved/love very much. Present tense and past tense seem to blur in the midst of death. Mom went to be fully with Jesus a few months ago after 10 days of multiple strokes. Heart-wrenching…but here’s one of the things God is teaching me through it all: that as I’ve faced THE thing I’ve probably feared more than any other, He truly IS True…I am not undone even as the journey, including this first Christmas w/o her has been filled with a mixture of joy and sorrow. I am learning so much about how the Body of Christ is to love each other, as I walk through this alongside my large family of many unsaved people! Truly, whether if its Christmas, Easter or random days in March, August or October, we are to love & worship Jesus by loving Him and others…“faith expressing itself in love” as we weep with those who weep and celebrate with those who celebrate. Somehow, bit by bit, I think I’m learning this in new & gloriously messy ways this holiday season. :)

January 09 07 Dave K wrote:

Well, I just went through my post-holiday funk. It always happens in January, whether because of the holidays or the winter or the pressure of the New Year, I don’t know. Fortunately, it always only lasts a few days too. So I feel better. But what is really interesting is that the whole time I’m in the funk, I blame people for my state… God, Wife, Friends, Family, whatever. So this is a good reminder that my state is not unique, we are all experiencing orphanhood and unfufilled potential in this time of expectation of God. To blame others for my state is selfish because it doesn’t recognize their hurting… AND because it puts fault for the brokenness of this world, the sin on their shoulders.

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