The beauty of the Christmas season

By Mia Pohlman

The world has moved on from Christmas, but the Church is in the middle of the Christmas season, which ends with the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, this year on Jan. 13. For the Church, the season of celebration and fulfillment begins on Christmas day; everything leading up to it is Advent, the time of waiting and longing and expectation, the time when things are unfulfilled, and we wonder if they ever will be.

Then, Christmas day happens. We remember Jesus was born, and we celebrate his fulfillment of all our hopes, the end of our practice of patience, the beginning of our celebration. He is here. God has remembered. God has come.

But perhaps on Christmas day and the days that follow, we are also reminded that all of our longings are not yet fulfilled, that we still feel sad somehow, that struggles and questions and circumstances in our lives remain unsolved, unanswered or unfinished. All things are not yet right. We haven't, maybe, yet arrived.

The opening passage of John's Gospel has always been one of my favorites. I love that John goes all the way back to "in the beginning" before creation existed, and situates the coming of God as baby alongside God as creator of everything. The first chapter of Matthew that details the genealogy of Jesus has become one of my favorite Christmas readings, too. It strikes me as profound that each person within the lineage is significant -- the people who made wise decisions, alongside the people who didn't.

In both these readings, there is a broadness in scope encompassing the wideness of time that touches me deeply and rests well in my soul. These passages are comforting, like telling what I perceive as problems to someone who has already lived eight decades, and their reassurance everything will be and is okay. That time works everything out. That "yet" is a powerful word. These passages have a way of helping me feel both my smallness and significance.

These passages remind us of the continuum of time, and that our God cares for both the big picture and the details. That our God holds it all; that we are inside of our all-encompassing God and can rest here.

In the middle of this Christmas season after the initial joy of Christmas day, when the world has moved on and maybe we have remembered there are still problems and questions in the world and in our lives, these Scriptures remind us: Christmas was just one middle piece of God's work. There is more to come, and we are a part of it. The story is ongoing.

Jesus, the fulfillment of all our desires, is coming again. When resolution and arrival seem a long time in coming, we can zoom the lens out and look at all that has already happened and all that could be to come. Refinement takes time; that is why it is worth something.