If you’re like me, the Christmas season isn’t exactly a time that I look forward to. I know I’m in the minority, but hear me out. I decided to sit down and unpack all my thoughts, frustrations and feelings to piece together why find Christmas is so difficult to deal with.

When I think about Christmas, it’s difficult for me to picture the silent night in that dirty stable. It’s difficult to imagine the sky being filled with angels, declaring “Glory to God in the Highest.”

The image, for me, is much less glorious. It comes from a visit to a local Christmas market a couple of years ago, and it illustrates my problem with the season.

As the sun began to set, I saw hundreds flocking around the Christmas tree, lamp posts and brick walls waiting for the perfect picture. Shivering scowls painted on faces from one end of the street to another, but for the perfect few minutes when the sun was golden and the light hit everything just right, one by one, smiles popped up for the selfies. But here’s the thing, just as fast as they came – they left.

And that’s the problem I have with this season. We get so worked up about these moments. We take it a step further when they don’t seem to work out naturally. We go to great lengths to manufacture them. These false moments validate our deepest insecurities. Even if they’re temporary.

Being left out.

Being looked over.

Being unhappy.

Being unloved.

Being alone.

And let’s face it. We here in the church aren’t the most helpful. We inadvertently take on these self-serving, narcissistic and hopelessly empty moments in the form of banquets, cantatas, productions and shows.

None of these things are wrong, but in the process of trying to remind our world about the true meaning of Christmas, we end up losing sight of the true meaning of Christmas.

Even outside the church, we get all wrapped up in aggressively yelling “Merry Christmas” when someone offers a kind “Happy Holidays”. We start the cancel-parade when Starbucks drops a red holiday-themed cup. We profess Christmas without living in the reality of Christmas.

So before we move on and the focus shifts back to us, I implore you. Let’s be reminded of why we gather and why we remember this time.

It’s about a God so gracious; He steps into our timeline to radically change our future forever. It’s about being so deeply entrenched in sin; God had to pull us out from where we were. The King of Heaven was on a rescue mission. Not to show us a better way to live but to show us how to truly live, as the creation God took his time in designing, in communion with the triune, living God.

Instead of being unhappy, we have freedom.

Instead of being left out, we have been brought in.

Instead of being looked over, we have been chosen.

Instead of being unloved, we are deeply loved.

Instead of being alone, we’ve received the gift of God’s presence.

We’ve received these things not to stand still or to stay quiet, but to boldly proclaim that for unto you is born this day someone who can radically transform the worst parts of you. Someone who took death and the power of hell head head-on and emerged victoriously. Someone who empowers us every single day by His indwelling Holy Spirit. Someone who’s returning not as a baby in a manger, but a roaring lion.

The reality of Christmas has everything to do with a gracious God and an ungrateful, unwilling people. We aren’t heroes of the story, valiantly fighting to “Keep Christ In Christmas” with our over-priced experiences.

Jesus doesn’t need rescuing. We do.

So as you celebrate this season, my hope and prayer is that your heart would experience the hope of God’s glorious Gospel anew. That Jesus and Jesus alone would truly be enough. That Luke 2:11, would be as personal to you as it was to the shepherds in the field that first Christmas night:

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11