Christmas for the Unhappy

Christmas. The very name conjures up warm and happy images of home and family - children hanging their stockings, families decorating their trees, carols softly playing. These images are reinforced by everything from seasonal movies and books to holiday commercials.

At their worst, these images can be shallow and materialistic, but they can also be good -- full of warmth, hospitality, and generosity. It is fully appropriate that these beautiful images be associated with the celebration of Jesus' birth.

However, it is easy to feel that Christmas subsists in these happy images, whether it is happiness with family or even happiness in the birth of Christ. It easy to feel that if we are not happy then we are not properly celebrating Christmas.

But maybe our reality looks different. Maybe we are too overwhelmed by holiday preparations and obligations to feel much Christmas happiness. Or perhaps our problems go even deeper - mental health struggles, financial concerns, difficult families members, the grief of loss. The feeling that we and our families cannot have a true Christmas because we are not really very happy.

But what if our joy in Christmas does not come from our happiness - but actually from our unhappiness? After all, the story actually starts with the ultimate sorrow.

Then the LORD God said: See! The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil! Now, what if he also reaches out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life, and eats of it and lives forever?

The LORD God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he had been taken.

He expelled the man, stationing the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword east of the garden of Eden, to guard the way to the tree of life. (Gen 3:22-24)

But this tragedy is not the end of the story. Later, we hear whisperings that this exile is not our ultimate lot.

Strengthen hands that are feeble,
make firm knees that are weak,Say to the fearful of heart:
Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God,
he comes with vindication;
With divine recompense
he comes to save you. (Is. 35:3-4)

I named my son Edmund. The most common association with that name is not St. Edmund Campion, for whom he was named, but Edmund from The Chronicles of Narnia. Edmund is the brother who betrays his siblings for a box of Turkish Delight.

"Edmund, he's the bad one, " people sometimes say jokingly when they hear my son's name. But they forget the rest of the story. They forget how Aslan comes into the land of Narnia and later dies to save Edmund from the White Witch.

"No," I reply, "Edmund is the one who is redeemed."

And so indeed are we. Whether we too are struggling with a deep betrayal or from something as small as our own intemperate desires for the Turkish Delight of the moment, we know that these are not all there is. We unhappy ones are the ones who can most appropriately celebrate Christmas.

We are the ones who are redeemed.