Unexpected news? A bill you didn’t see coming? Health issues for someone you love? Relationships strained?
I get it. It’s hard any time of the year, but worse at Christmas. Looking at my friends’ profiles, it’s easy to see that I’m not alone in thinking the peaceful season is fraught with pain and worry and stress.
“He knows our need, to our weakness no stranger.”
These words from O Holy Night have always resonated with me. This is, in essence, what the Incarnation is all about: He became one of us.
He had parents who stressed out over finances. He had friends with health concerns. He grew up amidst political turmoil and religious strife. Yes, Jesus was fully God–but He was fully human, too.
Which means He knows exactly what you’re facing right now. Intimately, deeply, and personally. He knows the weakness of doubt and worry and fear, because He lived and loved and walked in a world filled with it.
But it also means that you can trust Him. You can lean into Him, cry out to Him, rail at Him, and rest in Him. He doesn’t keep you at arm’s length. The Incarnation shows that He longs to be close, to draw you near.
Where He will remind you, gently, “I am here, beloved. Calm your heart. As I was near to the Father, I am near to you. Rest in my heavenly peace.”
Duane S. Montague 