The Romance of The Christmas Card... or Mhyrr

EMMANUEL………………."God With Us”

He dwelt among us. He dwells among us. Christmas traditions. Candles burning, hot chocolate by the fire, warm and beautiful quilts, a sparkling Christmas tree. After a difficult childhood and youth, I clung in my adult years to the human and earthly beauties of Christmas traditions, savoring Christ’s story, but also relishing the material and romantic blessings of Christmas in America. I loved the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas and filled it with Christmas craft parties, teas, shopping, card and gift making, walking to see the Christmas lights, and especially writing Christmas messages to loved ones on beautiful Christmas cards. When my kids were younger, I made them fancy Christmas shirts with big pictures of someone (yes, it was santa claus) embroidered on with ribbons and lace; they wore these shirts with red and green pants every day between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have relished this time with a thirst that I can see I needed for Someone else, Jesus. There is nothing wrong with loving life, I know, but when it squeezes the Truth, the Word, the Person of our Triune God and a deep understanding of Him out of our lives……………then, God may lovingly set us back on our wobbly legs on our crooked path to Him.
Kate Douglas Wiggin wrote a book in the 1800’s called “The Romance of the Christmas Card..” I have a beautiful copy of this book; on the cover is a beautiful picture of a quaint home nestled in the snow with smoke wafting from the chimney. Ah, I just love this book; it seems to capture my “feelings” about Christmas. Romance is the imaginations of the man, the exaggerated feelings and emotions associated with his or her creations; romance is truly the celebration of man and his creativity…………..pure romance is this combined with the denial that God created man in His Image and that any ounce of creativity that we have has its Source in HIM. Romance is man idealizing the creation and forgetting about God. Romantics heighten emotion and seek to make everything “perfect.” A perfect setting, situation, atmosphere that is pleasing to sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. Romantics might not want to talk about problems because it might spoil the atmosphere. The beautiful literature and artwork of the early 1800’s galvanized the idea for men that he was indeed beautiful and capable of goodness and perfection. The beauty of these works gave the creatures the confidence in his ability to create his own reality, a reality of beauty and human grace. We all know this was not truth and the realities became problems with the Industrial Age, human poverty and squalor, World Wars, greed. What also came along was man’s expression of himself as broken and fractured and pessimistic as seen in Modern Art and the rock music of the 1900’s.
This Christmas, the Christmas of 2008, I was going to start my Christmas cards early so that I could write a personal message on each one. I had so many people in my life who had no idea how much they meant to me. This year we had some problems and work that really looked like it was going to drain our Christmas time dry but I was still determined to do it my way. Ten days before Christmas I had not written one card and I had many duties that were not Christmas related before me. Finally, I set the stage and Jenny and I sat close to each other on the couch by the Christmas tree with boxes of Christmas cards spread out before us on the tea- stained carpeting. We were both a little tired, but that was OK, we could still do it. Above us was the bathroom that began to echo the loud wretching of my husband with the most virulent Christmas stomach virus that we had ever encountered. He was sick for two days and nights until his admission to Ephrata Hospital on Monday evening. Listening to his misery that evening took every thought of ours captive………………we didn’t do much writing.
The next week, the last full week before Christmas, progressed with the “unforeseen plans of mice and men” as my mother always quoted to me in my childhood. In one week, I sat in three different doctor’s offices crying about three different family members (one was myself) and none were psychiatrists. No one was given any dire diagnoses, the problems are probably temporary. I am sure that I exaggerated the problems because of the lack of sleep that all of our family had endured because of the Christmas virus. I washed all of the blankets in the house and broke the washing machine. I climbed over the ever growing pile of laundry to make it to the garage to take 4 trips to the hospital, 3 doctors’ appointments, about 6 trips to the grocery store and the usual piano, flute and violin lessons. When the nurse discharged Pete from the hospital, she gave me his pink basin and pitcher to keep and I wondered who I could give it to for Christmas. As the days went by, I occasionally remembered the Christmas presents plopped in a pile on the basement floor. Someone must be dreamin’ of a wet Christmas because it has rained a lot this week and I keep hoping that the sump pump is still working. My daily walk around the block three times has left my life, but somehow I still manage to find those store-bought Christmas cookies and Elizabeth’s chocolate chip pancakes. Well, we strung the Christmas lights over dusty bookcases and grimy shelves and plugged ‘em in.

Life is not romantic. And in the midst of the “wretched” week, God gave me a deep and holy Christmas message. The true message of Christmas is that Jesus came to die and dwell among us……….in very unromantic conditions. Matthew Henry says that our Savior being born in a stable (Luke 2:3-7) represents the “corruption and degeneracy of mankind” and the humiliation of our Lord Jesus. “We were become by sin like an outcast infant, helpless and forlorn; and such a one Christ was.” (Matthew Henry) If Jesus’ family had been rich, there would have been a room for them. Dirty, sharp hay, smelly manure, very cold temperatures with only strips of cloth for warmth, worry about getting sick, the loneliness of having a baby where no one cared enough to make room in the inn, the fear that a powerful king wanted to kill their Son.
We even romanticize the manger scenes with our Fontanini Nativity sets. The truth is that Jesus came to die because of the stench of death in all of us………selfishness on earth and burning in hell are not romantic pleasures; they are not pleasant aromas.
“Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary His mother and falling to their knees, they worshiped Him. Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” Matthew 2:11. The myrrh was the holy message that God gave me in my wretched week. Myrrh, the gift of the Wise Men who lovingly and expectantly blessed the Baby’s purpose………………death. Myrrh was used in this Middle Eastern culture to embalm dead bodies.


“Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in a stone-cold tomb.
O star of wonder, star of night,
Star with royal beauty bright,
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us to thy perfect light.” (John Henry Hopkins, Jr.)

I had never known this about the myrrh before. My loving Father decided to teach me this week about myrrh, that He will be glorified in this sinful and sad world. That all the tragedy that I see around me, the sad stories that many weary pilgrims have told me this year will be glorified when He appears to take us home. My friend with 4 little children who lost her husband to cancer, my friend with cancer who beams joy and love and the loveliest smile in the midst of her surgeries and treatments, loved ones worried about losing their jobs and homes, some working 2 and 3 jobs, loved ones concerned about their autistic child, loved ones in pain with Lyme’s Disease and MS, and yes, loved ones experiencing another Christmas without the Hope and Consolation of Christ. Myrrh means that our true home is with Him, in Him, not in our earthly circumstances and our earthly accomplishments. His significance was not in the stable or manger or in the clothes that He wore, the job, the admiration, the recognition, the praise, the friendship, the love that He received, or the home that He supped in; it was in His death for our sin, to give us Life with Him and in Him, now and in Heaven.
My myrrh this week was in my tragic and virulent selfishness, the root of all my sin. I was not happy this week about my Christmas plans being altered, about being only able to keep up with the mundane duties and details of life that seemed to be my only lot in life. I wanted to sit quietly, being perfectly rested in a clean house, and write about all that God is doing in my life this year. I can see now how selfish I was and that this is why He came at Christmas, to teach me to ask to die to myself and to live for Him. All week long I battled dying to my self and my romantic vision of how life should be, my desire to be satisfied with my earthly circumstances.

Romanticism is part of who we are as humans. We are romantic and a certain amount of earthly loveliness is well and good and a precious gift of God. It is not bad to create a cheery and warm home and pleasant atmosphere. But Reality is Christ and we must always remember for every creaturely comfort we enjoy, there are hundreds in our own communities that are lonely, lost, and in need of things and comfort from us. I thank God that I have the privilege of setting my needs aside to help sick people, but I see even more clearly that this really does bother me and I need help with this, that my battle with self versus helping others is a true cross that I need to take up to follow Christ. (Luke 9:23). This is Reality. Christ alone can cover my sins, my irritations, my annoyances, my selfishness, with His goodness. Reality is sitting in the midst of a “perfect” Christmas with the “perfect” atmosphere, and Him saying, “Can you trust me in your afflictions?” When things are less than perfect, when the atmosphere is tarnished by financial fears, economic recession, unemployment, chronic illness, selfishness and strife………..do I love and trust Jesus as my Sovereign Lord who may want to refine me through weakness? Do I experience His love in my earthly humiliation? Do I trust Him to work out for Good the problems in my life and the profound sadnesses I see in others?

The Lord gave me some other gifts this year. My husband taught me some things about Christ’s parables related to his own life. And about a month ago, we had a Thanksgiving Tea and there were five testimonies given. Three were by my own daughters who expressed publicly how God had worked some beautiful Biblical truths out in their lives. A fourth testimony was by a dear friend who I love. She testified to God revealing to her the poignant beauty of His coming and His death to her recently through an Advent sermon. When hearing the Christmas story in church, she began to weep. After church, someone was lovingly concerned for her that she was crying. My friend thought, “Am I so callous and hardened that someone would think that the Christmas story would not make me weep?”

Enough said,

Love,
Kim