Gloria Dei Lutheran Church | Urbandale, Iowa

Christmas Playlist - Blue Christmas

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, December 6, 20009

[Video. Elvis Presley singing Blue Christmas. Christmas is filled with joy and happiness, right? Well, not for everyone. People mourn the death of loved ones who will not be at the family table, relationships that are no more or just the fact that they will not be able to be with family. Everyone is not happy at Christmastime. For many, it will be a very blue Christmas. And yet, isn’t that the message of Christmas? God came to a hurting world to bring hope and comfort.]

It’s pretty much a well-known fact that the time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, it’s a very tough time for a lot of people. It’s such an intense time of year. There are such high expectations this time of year of family and friends and expectations that everyone is happy and everyone’s joy-filled and everyone’s supposed to have a smile on their face and yet, it’s at this time of year that we well up with a lot of emotion.

It’s no wonder that last Saturday’s Des Moines Register headline was talking about the rise in depression and suicide rates in the State of Iowa. If you were to go through any of the major news sources on the Internet, you would find at least a half a dozen articles that talk about the holiday blues, that talk about winter depression. It’s just something that happens each and every year. We all know it and we all understand it. We can probably recognize the fact that this year, it may be heightened a little bit. After all, we’ve just come off a horrific economic time so there’s been job loss and the threat of job loss or maybe there’s a reduction in salary. If you add to that people have lost loved ones and so they’re facing the holiday season without either their spouse or their son or their daughter or someone significant in their life, it’s no wonder that anxiety levels are rising and there’s sadness in people’s lives. They’re not just singing along with Blue Christmas. They’re living it.

But here’s the rub. We don’t know who you are. Right now, if you were to take a look to your right and take a look to your left, you wouldn’t know. And yet, I guarantee you that your eyes would have passed over somebody who is hurting deeply right now. But we convince ourselves we need to put a smile on our face, we need to play the Christmas music, we need to brag about our Christmas cookies, hand out the presents and yet, all the while, we can’t wait until Christmas is over. We’re not looking forward to the celebration. We’re looking forward to January 2 so we can put it all behind us for another 11 months. But we won’t let on to anyone else.

I have no doubt in my mind that some of you are right there right now. And that’s why God’s prophet wants to speak to you this morning. I have no doubt that you know someone who’s there right now and that’s why the words of God’s prophet are for them because he speaks the word of comfort and hope for people.

So I was reading through some articles these past couple of weeks. I ran across a couple who talked about how to beat the winter blues or how to get past that holiday stressful time. A couple of those articles, there’s a link on the website. I go ahead and recommend that you take a look at them, but what really struck me was the correlation between what the experts said and what the prophet said. And the prophet was first.

So we look to God’s Word. How are some of the ways in which if you were facing a blue Christmas this year, if you have those emotions inside of you, how can you make it through or how can you offer help to a loved one or a friend? There are three things we want to pull out of the prophet, Isaiah, as God speaks through him to help us in this Christmas season and to make it through the blue times.

The first one is this: We need to acknowledge our pain. We need to acknowledge the fact that there’s something going on inside of us and it’s very, very hard to do in our culture because we’re under the impression that everybody’s happy. We’re under the impression that everybody is joy-filled so we can’t talk about the fact that we’re not. We can’t talk about the fact that we have a deep sadness or there’s an emptiness inside of us or that there’s anxiety going on because, after all, we’re supposed to be strong and we don’t want to “ruin Christmas” for everyone else. But what we need to understand is not everyone is happy and jolly and full of giggles and laughs. It’s just simply not true.

On WebMD, one of their articles by a psychologist named Lisa Lewis said this, “People think they should be happy all the time, but that’s unrealistic.” She says, “Life is far more complex than that.” It is. Life is far more complex to think we could always be happy, that we could always be riding on a high with smiles on our face. And it’s particularly true this time of year. Heightened sensitivity. It’s almost charged in the air with these expectations of family. But what happens if family isn’t here? What happens if a family member is no longer with us but they now reside in heaven? And I know it’s the most intense for those of you who have lost people this past year. But it goes beyond that. It goes way beyond that.

I lost my mother in ‘86. She loved Christmas. It was a special time of year for her. I guarantee you every year, I pull out her ornaments, I put them on the tree with a lump right there. My family knows it. I get quiet. I’m filled with emotions and memories. It’s not all happiness. There’s some sadness. There’s some regret. That’s part of life this side of heaven.

If this past year you lost your job, you have the threat of losing your job, you walk through the malls and Toys R Us and all you can see are the things you can’t buy, the things you can’t give away. And so you think Christmas won’t be the same. Christmas will be ruined. Life isn’t a constant ride that’s all joy-filled. The reality is not everyone is happy and jolly this time of year.

And yet, we want to convince ourselves that we’re supposed to be. We want to tell ourselves that we just need to be a little bit stronger, we just need to pull ourselves up from our bootstraps. And then the one I detest the most and I really detest this one is we tell ourselves, “If we would just focus on the real meaning of Christmas, then we wouldn’t feel this way.” We tell ourselves, “If we just focus on the real meaning of Christmas, then we wouldn’t be sad and we wouldn’t be filled with these emotions.” So now on top of your anxiety, on top of your depression, there’s guilt heaped on top of that because you’re saying to yourself, “I’m not spiritually mature enough because if I was more spiritually mature, then I wouldn’t be sad.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

God has made us emotional beings. Happy and joy-filled, sad and mourning, the whole gamut. If we want to get through the Christmas season, we need to acknowledge the pain, acknowledge the fact that there’s sadness, there’s anxiety, there’s stress. Bring it to the forefront so we can deal with it and we can move on.

Psychologist Lewis said this, “If we can welcome the full range of emotional experience as part of a normal, healthy life, it takes some of the misery out.” She says, “If we allow ourselves to have those emotions, they’ll actually pass more quickly than if we try to stuff them down inside of us.” We need to stop stuffing them down inside of us and go ahead and bring them to the surface and admit them to ourselves, allow ourselves to be sad, allow ourselves to have a time of crying if that’s what we need to do. Reach out to a friend or a family member and share with them the struggles that are going through our life. If we want to get past it, the first thing we need to do is we need to acknowledge it.

As a side note here, I want to talk to the men. Guys, this isn’t a girlie thing. It is in our culture that somehow men are supposed to be strong and silent. We’re supposed to stand up straight, be strong for our family and not admit the emotions we have inside of us, that somehow it’s unmanly for us to feel sad or somehow it’s unmanly for us to cry or cry out to God. God created you the same as He did women, with a full range of emotions.

Here’s an example for you. You want a manly man? I can’t think of anyone more than King David. King David, when he was a teenager, goes up mono‑o-mono with a giant and with a slingshot takes him out. He becomes king of all of Israel. He leads his armies into battle after battle after battle until he conquers the entire Promise Land. We’re talking one rough, tough dude. Read the Psalms. Tell me he’s not emotional. Tell me that things don’t well up inside of him.

It’s David who wrote, “But I call to God and the Lord saves me. Evening, morning and noon, I cry out in distress and He hears my voice.” Read through the Psalms, see how he pours out his heart to God as he allows himself and he acknowledges the emotions that are going on inside of him and he cries out to his God for help. But the first step is he acknowledged the pain. If you want to avoid a blue Christmas, if you want to help someone else through this season, acknowledge what’s going on inside of you. And go ahead and cry out to God and allow yourself to have that moment. And then focus on the future.

And the only way we can focus on the future is if we let go of the past. I’m not talking about the memories of the past. I’m not talking about remembering loved ones and the traditions and all the great things that have happened throughout the years. I’m talking about a release from the past, the past decisions you’ve made, the past choices. Because a lot of the pain around holidays deals with the past, something we said, something we did, regrets that we have of things we didn’t do, regrets of things we did do. There is a whole plethora of things that can be there.

Imagine if the last time you talked to one of your siblings was six months ago and they were heated words between you and him or her and now you’re going to get together for Christmas. Is it really shocking that there’s some anxiety there? Is it really a surprise that there’s some stress centered around that family gathering that’s happening? You see, we have to be released from the past. We have to know there are decisions and choices we’ve made, regrets we have of years gone by that we need to be released from that so we can focus on the future. And the only way we can be released from that is through a loving and forgiving God.

Look to the prophet again. The prophet says that God told him to bring comfort to his people. The Lord said, “Comfort, comfort, my people.” He says, “Speak tenderly to the people of Jerusalem,” and how is it that he’s to bring comfort to them? This is the way: “Proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sins have been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all of her sins.” How is it the people are to be comforted? They are to be released from their past. They are to be released from all of their poor decisions and the bad times. You see, the prophet has spent 39 chapters just railing on the people with doom and gloom because they’ve been unfaithful to God and the things that are going to happen to them. And now he brings a word of comfort and he says, “God will release you from the past. He will release you from those times when He told you to go right and you went left. He will release you from the times that you did the exact opposite of what He wanted you to do.” All of the regrets, all the bad choices released from the past. And then He says, “There’ll be no question to His forgiveness because the Lord will give back double for all of your sins.” He says that double payment will be made so there’s no question of the completeness of that forgiveness.

You know, I equate that, if I buy something from a friend or a relative, I’d rather pay more for what it’s worth than less so there’d be no question that there’s no cheating, there’s no inequality in the deal. I’d rather pay double for something so that wouldn’t affect the relationship. God says He paid double for the sins so there’d be no question.

Isn’t that the message of Christmas we’re about to celebrate? That God would leave no question to His love? That he’d leave no question to the completeness of His forgiveness? After all, God didn’t come to Mary and say, “I’m appointing a new prophet.” God didn’t come to Mary and say, “I’m going to send an angel to deliver the people.” He came to Mary and says, “You’re going to give birth to God Himself.” Because God came, He left no question, He left no doubt. God would come and He would live among His people. God would walk among us and He would experience everything it is to be a human being and then God Himself would be hung upon a cross. And in His death, He paid for our sins, double, triple, quadruple. For in His death, we are released from our past. And in His resurrection, He gives us a future. He gives us a future.

If you’re going to avoid the blues this Christmas and you want to make it through this holiday season, then maybe you need to come to God and say, “I need to be released from my past.” Maybe it’s something that happened last week. Maybe it’s something that happened in the last decade. And you come to God and you say, “God, I have to get rid of this.” And you come to Him and confess to him. And God says that He wipes the slate clean. He says He chooses to remember your sins no more. He releases you from the past so that you can focus on the future, the future that He gives to you.

And then you fall into the arms of your God. You want to make it past the Christmas blues? Then fall into the arms of God. He’s the only one who will not disappoint you. I guarantee you that everything and everyone else this side of heaven will disappoint you at some time. Every family member, every friend, every loved one, at some point in time this side of heaven, will disappoint you. That’s just the reality of living in this world.

What I’m saying is set up for yourself a realistic view of this season. You have to stop painting the Norman Rockwell painting that says everything is going to be perfect, that the decorations are going to be stunning, the meals superb and you’re going to find the perfect gift for everyone else. You’re setting yourself up for disaster if you do that because everything and everyone will disappoint you except God this side of heaven.

So if you’re planning and you’re banking on the fact that you’re going to find just the right gift and everyone’s going to be impressed with it, that the meals are going to be outstanding and the Christmas Eve worship service is going to be awe inspiring, I have to tell you the sweater probably won’t fit, something will get burned at dinner, the kids will argue and, as sure as I’m standing here, I won’t pick the right hymns for Christmas Eve.

Everyone and everything else this side of heaven will disappoint. But not God. What does the prophet say? He says, “All men, all people are like grass and all their glory is like a flower of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall. The Word of God stands forever.” The Word of God stands forever.

The Word of God is words of peace and comfort. The Word of God is the promise of His love and deliverance. The Word of God from the prophet is telling us that there’s going to be one who’s coming and we’re supposed to prepare a way for Him because God is coming into the world. And this is going to be God’s chosen one. This is going to be God’s messenger. This is going to be God’s Messiah.

The prophet in Chapter 42 talks about this one which God will send. He says, “He will not shout or cry out or raise His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out.”

Are you bruised this morning? Do you feel like you don’t have much burning inside of you and it’s just smoldering? God says He won’t break you and He won’t let you be snuffed out. God says that He’ll build up the brokenhearted, that He will reignite that light in your life.

Don’t believe me? Listen to His own words. Jesus said, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I wouldn’t know it from looking in your eyes right now, but do you need to come to Jesus? Are you hiding your pain from everyone else this morning? But do you need to heed Jesus’ words and come to Him? If you can’t wait for Christmas to be over, maybe you need to come to Him. Maybe you need to fall into His arms and just cry for awhile. Do that in the solitude of your room if you want to, but just fall into the arms of Jesus and cry and pour out your heart to Him.

Maybe you’ve been carrying around a regret, guilt from the past. You just need to be released from that. Jesus is the only one who can do that. He’s the only one who can wipe it out. Do you just need to fall into His arms and feel His strength and His comfort surround you?

That’s the message of the prophet. That’s the message of Christmas as we’re preparing to celebrate. So if you feel like you’re going to have a blue Christmas, if you can’t wait for Christmas to be over, then Christmas is exactly what you need. Amen.