15. Hope for This Christmas

The Christmas season has just started, yet for me it feels like such a long wait. The transition between winter and fall is my most favorite season, especially the temperature change, the beautiful colors, my birthday, my mom's birthday, my parent's anniversary, and of course the advent of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ of whom we celebrate the day on which He was born. As I begin to think about the season this year and what it means to me, I realized how fortunate we are as God's children. As many of us take for-granted this phenomenal truth, there are many "orphans" out there, unbelievers wallowing in the filth of their own lives of which they have no idea how deep a hole they have dug for themselves. This analogy of "orphans" reminds me of a song written a few years ago for the Christmas season by a Christian artist, Toby McKeehan. 

"This Christmas"

Now Johny never got his wish on December 25

That's what he said when he left the orphanage

9 years old, but Johny was an old soul

Gonna spend his first Christmas in a real home

Showed me a picture that he drew the night before

Was a picture of a man standin' outside a door

I asked him who it was and he said someone I only see in dreams

Comforts me when I cry myself to sleep

Believe in angels?

Johny asked me starin' at the sky

I said I do and saw a sparkle in his eye

Big brother for the weekend respondin' to the season

Took the chance that givin's better than recievin'

Two nights, a new family, some holiday cheer

We laughed and sang

Came on a midnight clear

We gave, recieved, and as we headed to close

We looked to the heavens and it started to snow

Down blessings

[Chorus]

Father of the fatherless

Be with your sons and daughters this Christmas

Father let us not forget

The children who are all alone this Christmas

This illustration of adoption is a good lesson for the beauty of God's work of claiming us as His own. The Apostle Paul tells us we have been adopted by God and are now heirs of His divine promises (see Romans 8, Galatians 4). But what are we to make of our lives when it seems that, despite our faith, we are alone in the world? If you have ever felt isolated, cut off, or singled out, then you know what it is to feel hopelessly alone, as if God Himself has turned His back on you. In times like these, we can remember one of the Christ-child's names: "Emmanuel"-God with us. And indeed, only once has God ever turned His back on His own, as the grown Christ exclaimed from the cross, "My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

Thus, the Father rejected His Son for our sake. Jesus died alone so we would never be alone. Since we have been adopted into God's family with Christ our brother, and led by the Holy Spirit, "by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!'" (Rom. 8:15), we have hope. So as we try to not get caught up in all the "hustle and bustle" of the season, let's try to remember the true reason for the season. For this time of year should remind us that because of Christ, we will never be alone, and neither should the lost. Focus not on getting and receiving, but on giving the gift that Christ first gave to us, spreading the hope, planting the seed, displaying the light of Christ to those who are "orphaned" in their own spiritual lives. What better way to show the true spirit of Christmas: the birth of Hope.