Why a weary world still can rejoice on Christmas Day
Every year, one of our favorite Christmas traditions is watching the holiday classics from movies like “It’s A Wonderful Life” to “Elf,” and it’s gotten even more fun for us, with our small children.
This year we decided to check out “The Polar Express,” amovie about a young boy who is coming to terms with the coldness of the world but who also still has within him a small spark of child-like faith. The boy gets on a special train run by an animated conductor, who sure is the spitting image of Tom Hanks.
The train takes the boy, along with a select group of other children, to the North Pole for a meeting with Santa Claus.
At the climax of the movie, as Santa emerges, the boy is unable to see him, and even as a bell falls off one of Santa’s reindeer and the boy holds it and tries to jingle it, he can’t hear the sound of the bell. It isn’t until here solves to believe and not lose hope, that he can suddenly hear the sound of the bell and see Santa.
It was a powerful scene about faith and hope that truly moved my heart. As the film ends, the boy (now an older man) narrates how over the years, his younger sister and friends would no longer be able to hear the sound of the bell, but he still could. Can you hear the bell today?
This has been a year unlike any other in recent memory for most of us. The economic, emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual toll that this year has taken on all of us has made for a different and difficult Christmas.
And yet, as “dark” as this winter seems and feels, and as weary as theworld is and as hopeless as it all may seem, I would put forward to you all thatwe have never inmy lifetime ever had a Christmas that is as closely connected to the first one.
As a group of shepherds tend their flock at night, working tirelessly to earn a living, largely living apart from their society, the world they lived in was weary as well. For centuries they had been anxiously waiting and praying and hoping for God to make good on His promise to their ancestors to send a Messiah who would be a King and a Deliverer.
God had seemed silent and far removed fromtheir daily plight under the oppression of living under Roman occupation.
And then, out of nowhere, in the dark of night, light burst forth, with a multitude of heavenly messengers to relay the greatest news in human history: “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ”(Luke 2:10-11).
All of us are looking for and longing for a reason to have joy in our hearts today, all of us are looking for a reason to be hopeful for the future instead of fearful and to have peace in our restless hearts and divided country, and that reason was born in a manger 2,000 years ago. His name is Jesus “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.”-Isaiah 9:2