Our Daily Bread: Celebrating JesusSýnishorn

Dreaming at Christmas

A cry was heard in Ramah—weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted. -Matthew 2:18

For Irving Berlin, Christmas held not joy but sadness. The composer of “White Christmas” lost his infant son on Christmas Day 1928. His wistful song, which longs for a bygone time of holiday joys, would become wildly popular during World War II, resonating with troops overseas dreaming of Christmases back home.

Dreams and grief are crucial themes of the Christmas story. In a literal dream, an angel explained the miraculous conception of Jesus to Joseph (Matthew 1:20). Another dream warned the Magi to avoid the murderous Herod (2:12). And an angel told Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt with the baby Jesus (v. 13). 

We welcome the dreams of Christmas. The sadness, however, intrudes like a rude guest. Rachel weeps (v. 18). For soon after that first Christmas a paranoid king would slaughter helpless children (v. 16).  In Matthew’s gospel, Rachel, a matriarch of Israel, represents a nation’s inconsolable grief. 

It’s a scene we yearn to see deleted from the story. Why must there be such sadness in this, the greatest of all stories? 

Jesus Himself is the only satisfying answer to that question. The Baby who escaped the Bethlehem tragedy grew up to conquer all such tragedies, even death itself, by dying and rising for all of us. As another Christmas carol says of Him: The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight. -Tim Gustafson

What Christmas songs speak to you the most, and why? This Christmas, how can you acknowledge your griefs while also celebrating your joys?

Heavenly Father, Christmas so often finds us wrapped in sadness. This Christmas, be real to us in ways we haven’t understood before.