All over my neighborhood, people have removed Christmas trees and decorations, beginning on the evening of the 25th. This came as no surprise to me, of course, because some of those decorations had gone up slightly after Halloween, and certainly long before Thanksgiving. So, they were old and had surely gotten old. I’m not judging. All the joy we could muster was and is appropriate and welcome.
There are 12 days of the Christmas season, which technically ends on Jan. 6, on the Feast of the Epiphany. Just because the tree was tired and dropping needles, Christmas is still with us. And although we are now celebrating a new year, and perhaps beginning to breathe sighs of relief at the departure of 2020, we are still in the season of Christmas. It’s not about decorations or gifts. Christmas is the moment of time in which God became human, the celebration of the incarnation—God coming into our world, into us. God with us. Turning the calendar page changes nothing. God is with us.
As blessed as I am, I have longed for hugs this year, to an end of separation and isolation. The incarnation is the end of separation. God is with us, hugging us, being light, being our friend, our love, our companion. If only, as we discard our wrapping paper and drying trees, we can remember that God is eternally with us. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
Last year we often felt alone. It was a year when we least might have imagined God being interested in joining us. It is difficult to imagine how much love it takes for God to join us in this world, with all our troubles. Think back over the years of the world. There has not been one easy year, one year in which it would have been a happy lark, a convenient time for God to come to us in the world. The year in which the first Christmas occurred was a year marred by a long and horrible occupation by a foreign force and culture, and the persecution of those who followed the ancient way of Judaism, and consequently the first followers of Jesus who were Jewish by faith and culture.
And yet, God came as light into a dark world. God came into a world that felt as difficult and stark as the year we have lived. Perhaps, we hope, 2021 will be better. Maybe it will. Maybe it will not. In every hardship, in every difficult day, the fundamental proclamation of Christians is that God is with us. God is not far off, enjoying the favors of some idyllic heaven. God is with us, in political division, in virus-ridden streets and hospitals, in violence, poverty, racism, hunger. God is with us when we sing or are silent, when we rejoice and when we grieve. There is no moment in which God is not with us.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1: 5) God was not oblivious upon joining the human race. God knew that darkness was the way of the world, the human status quo. As happy as Christmas can be, it is also as much about acknowledging the darkness into which God arrived, which can never overcome God’s light. The light may not change our circumstances, but it will be there in every moment of our darkness.
As one year ends and the next begins, we can be sure of one thing: We are not alone. God is with us. God from God, Light from Light, not intimidated by the darkness we have created in our world, or that we live with daily. God is with us; God is our Light, our present help, our companion. We are not alone.
The Rev. Dr. Jan Fuller is chaplain to Elon University and can be reached at jfuller3@elon.edu.
