December 18, 2024, Rev. Dr. Garrett J. Andrew
I’ll admit it: I’m not feeling so merry this year. The world shouts at me to be cheerful, to celebrate, to fill my heart with jingling bells and shining lights. But I feel something else entirely—an ache that sits heavy in my chest. I miss people I love and lost, and their absence feels louder when the carols play. And I’m tired from holding grief like a secret. I’m unsettled by a world that pretends everything’s fine, by a culture that packages perfect happiness while ignoring the quiet cracks in our hearts and in our society.

The truth is, I’m grieving not only the empty chairs at the table, but the way the world presses us to hide our wounds, to swallow our pain, to force a smile when we are longing to cry out. I am grieving a world that so often rewards polished façades and punishes honest lament. As the holidays swirl around me, I can’t help but feel the sting of injustice, loss, and a relentless speed that leaves no room for tenderness.

And yet, I find a strange and gentle hope emerging from a story older than our frantic December rush. The story of God slipping quietly into the world as a fragile child, born in a stable that smelled of straw and animals and damp earth. This isn’t a fairy-tale moment, it’s divine love becoming utterly human—entering into a messy, complicated reality without flinching. The Incarnation says God is here, right here, in our flawed, unfinished world. Not demanding that we hide our sorrow, not insisting we decorate over our wounds, but meeting us exactly where we are.

If Christmas means anything real to me this year, it means I don’t have to pretend. I can bring every tear, every weary sigh, every silent hope for a kinder world, and lay it beside the manger. The Holy One doesn’t stand off, waiting for me to get it together. God-with-us means God with me—sitting in the shadows, feeling the weight I carry, and saying, “You are not alone. Your grief is held. Your heartbreak matters.”

Hope, I’m learning, doesn’t look like forcing cheerfulness. It looks like a tiny light flickering in a drafty barn, illuminating the rough edges and making the darkness honest rather than unbearable. It looks like trusting that this fragile glow can coexist with my sadness—that it doesn’t scold me for feeling broken, but gently makes room for all I’m carrying.

If you, too, carry wounds that the carols don’t soothe, know that you’re not alone. We’re here, together, in the quiet shadows, bearing witness to each other’s truth.

So if your heart is heavy, let it be heavy. If you’re angry at the world’s cruelty, let that truth be spoken. If you miss someone so much it hurts, let your tears fall. The miracle of Christmas isn’t about smothering the darkness in artificial brightness. It’s about the Light entering into the darkness as it is—your darkness, my darkness, the world’s darkness—and whispering, “I am here, and I will not leave you.” In that whispered presence, we might find just enough courage to believe our sorrow can be honored and our weary hearts can rest, knowing that love dwells among us, even now. Yes, at Christmas we can remember even our pain is loved.

With hope,

Garrett