A Restorative Christmas
As we continue our journey through the church calendar to discover ways that we can weave themes of restoration into the life of our congregations, we find ourselves at Christmas. Perhaps you’re wondering, what does an organization focusing on trauma healing have to say about Christmas? Christmas, a season marked by joy and celebration. Can such joy exist alongside suffering? Can suffering exist alongside such joy? Or is Christmas simply a season to temporarily forget the pain of this world, to numb ourselves with cookies and eggnog and simply seek out some momentary happiness before the new year comes and reminds us of our suffering?
At Restor(y) we believe joy is essential to trauma healing. We believe that joy and suffering are not mutually exclusive. In fact, we believe the way for a church to celebrate a trauma informed Christmas is to invite people into real, authentic joy. Let us be clear, far too many Christians view joy as a numbing agent. It is used to minimize or dismiss suffering. Scripture verses about joy coming in the morning are often said to people caught in the midst of great sorrow, as though their suffering has a time limit. This is not at all what Christian joy is. Christian joy and suffering are not mutually exclusive. In fact, quite often Christian joy is encountered most powerfully in moments of suffering. How is this possible? The answer is found in the very reason we celebrate Christmas, Emmanuel, God with us.
Throughout the Christmas narrative, we are presented with names for Jesus, one such name is Emmanuel which means God with us. At Christmas we celebrate the wonder of the God who chose to become a human that he might make his home with us. His presence is the reason for Christmas, and it is his presence that allows our sorrow and joy to intermingle so powerfully during moments of suffering. When we have a biblical understanding of suffering, we recognize that God is not far from us during times of suffering, rather in those moments we are invited to a deeper understanding of his presence. The incarnation and crucifixion of Jesus remind us that God is fully present with us in all forms of suffering. It is this recognition of God as Emmanuel, God with us, in times of great pain that allow us to hold joy and suffering together. For scripture teaches us, “In his presence is the fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11).
Christian joy has been defined as “someone who is glad to be with me" and "being the sparkle in someone's eye” (Wilder & Hendricks, 2020, p. 18). In other words, it is relational and involves presence. When we seek to encounter Emmanuel, not only at Christmas, but every time we find ourselves suffering, we discover that we are in fact the sparkle in God’s eye, that he is glad to be with us. God is not only glad to be with us when our lives are going well. His presence does not demand we heal and move on from our pain faster. Rather the invitation of Christian joy in moments of suffering is simply to encounter the face of God in our sorrow, to allow his compassionate gaze to fall upon us, to remember our presence with him brings God great delight. It is in the presence of our Emmanuel that we find not a numbing of our pain but a source for all joy, regardless how many our tears. The Christian can be joyful while weeping, because her joy is not an emotion, it is a resting in the gaze of the God who delights in her and weeps with her. The Christian can celebrate a joyful Christmas without ignoring suffering because he has encountered the presence of Emmanuel and has learned that God too longs for an end to all pain, and so his joy is found in uniting his longing with that of his God’s.
This is the joy of Christmas, that God is with us and in his presence is the fullness of all joy even without the erasure of all suffering.
