By Amy Lilly, Middle School English Teacher
The trappings of our celebration of Jesus’ birth often draw us away from the gritty truth of the gospel. What is it that required Jesus to leave the majesty of heaven to come on a rescue mission for humanity? Sin, yes, in a general sense, but to be more specific, me... my sin. The treason I committed against God by rejecting Him for my own whims and desires was so heinous that Jesus had to come to die in my stead. Reflecting on the part I play in the Christmas story requires that I recognize my need for forgiveness, and that recognition compels me to approach Christmas humbly, to approach my family humbly, to approach my family with forgiveness.
As a child, I was blissfully unaware of holiday tension. I had no idea that family gatherings could be difficult, that loving someone over the course of decades inevitably leads to being slighted, overlooked, forgotten, insulted, upset, that family Christmases can bring division to the very unit being gathered. Becoming an adult, starting a family, now grown and growing itself, has taught me much of holiday hurt. The joy we have in Jesus’ arrival is often overshadowed by the pain we bring to the celebration. The reason? We fail to grasp that what Jesus offers to us must be extended to those we love the most who, because we love them, have the capacity to hurt us more than anyone else.
The love of family is unconditional, but that doesn’t stop us from keeping lists. Yes, of happy memories, favorite gifts, funny mishaps... the public list that gets retold each year to our delight. But also, the list that gets whispered on the car ride home... of the rude comment Grandma made and how Uncle Joe was unkind to Cousin Suzy. And though the
first list grows each year, so does the second. Why? Because we fail to see ourselves rightly. Because we refuse to recognize how very broken we are and how desperately we need Jesus’ forgiveness. If we did, if we actually understood the magnitude of the gospel, we would never, we could never, withhold forgiveness from each other. How the enemy rejoices in the second list, while God reminds us in His Word that love “keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:5b, NIV).
Is family worth it? Is it worth traveling all those miles and spending all those hours with the same people who so thoroughly populate our list of pain? Jesus says so. I Timothy 5:8 tells us that “if anyone does not provide for his relatives, especially members of his own household, he has denied the faith, and he is worse than an unbeliever.” Perhaps this verse points to more than material provision. Perhaps forgiveness is part of providing for our family. Jesus’ list was full of me... wrongs I had done Him, sins I committed against Him, lies I told, insults I lobbed, people I hurt. Yet rather than holding my sin against me, He set aside His majesty to become human, “born in the likeness of man... He humbled
Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7-8). He died to remove the wages of my sin. Though the consequences remain, I am set free by His victory over death, and He separates my sin from me “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12a). He keeps no record of my wrongs. Why then do I keep a record of the wrongs done to me by the people I love the most?
Perhaps, if we took this Christmas season as a chance to offer the same forgiveness Jesus came to provide to those who have hurt us, we could demonstrate the truth of the gospel to those we desperately want to receive it. I love you. You hurt me. I forgive you. No matter what it takes, no matter how many times you have wronged me. Because I love you.
Because you’re family. Because Jesus forgave me. This year, celebrate Emmanuel by offering His gift to those around you. Remove the list of hurt from your family as far as the east is from the west. This is the gift of Christmas.
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