“When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he became enraged. He sent men to kill all the children in Bethlehem and throughout the surrounding region from the age of two and under…” (Matthew 2:16, NET Bible).

It was opening night for our church’s annual Christmas event with hundreds of kids running around, parents watching and losing a few, Christmas shops everywhere. All was loud and beautiful with the message of Christ intertwined. I was tapped on the shoulder and brought to the candy shop where an elderly woman was sitting up, head back, eyes rolled and not breathing. I immediately recruited help and lowered her to the gym floor, felt no pulse and started to perform CPR, when she began to breathe. Gradually she came around, and we sent her to the hospital. The amazing thing was that the celebration of Christmas by all those kids and parents never stopped. They continued as a sea of joy around me, running from shop to shop, while I kneeled on the gym floor resuscitating a woman who nearly left us to meet the Christ child in person.

I can’t get my mind around the immensity of life: so much joy and so much tragedy spinning together, as if they both were meant to be, knowing they were not. A near-death experience on a church gym floor as children ran around laughing with bags of popcorn and Christmas cookies. A baby born whom wise men worshipped as Herod killed the children in Bethlehem.

Either the tragedies and deep sadness of life don’t make sense, or the joy of Christmas doesn’t make sense—unless there is something about Christmas joy that invades a world gone wrong.

As is written in The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers, Oswald Chambers understood the intersection of a tragic world and the incarnate Christ:

“There is a gap and wildness in things, and if God does not step up and adjust it, there is no hope; but God has stepped in by the Redemption, and our part is to trust Him. Either the pessimist is right and we are autumn leaves driven by the blast of some ultimate, mindless power; or else the way out is by the Redemption of Jesus Christ.”

The only way to make sense of Christmas joy in a world so filled with pain is to know we live in a fallen world that is now being invaded by the Christ child. Christmas doesn’t make the tragedies of life any less serious, but Christmas makes the tragedies temporary. Tragedies no longer gets the last word—Jesus gets the last word.

In addition, Christmas means we are not alone; the Child who was born to die for us then is with us now as we walk through all the joys and sorrows of life.

Dear Father,

Thank you for coming as a child to bring us joy in a world where it often doesn’t make sense.

Amen

¹C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity