Also, “Silent Night”? Why the heck do we have both that carol and one called “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”? This makes no sense. Which is it? Was that night silent or were the hillsides ringing with song? (Perhaps new mothers are best qualified to answer. There ain’t nothing about delivering a child that’s silent. Or so I’ve heard.)

See, this is why Revelation 12 is one of my favorite Bible passages: in many ways, it is the truer reality of what happened at Christmas. The accounts of Matthew and Luke were meant to emphasize the human, intimate side of the Incarnation, but the PG-rated religious gilding it’s accumulated over the centuries (a white non-crying baby Jesus, Herod’s genocide left out of most church nativity scenes) has clouded a lot of that. Revelation 12 gives us the stakes. I daresay most guys might appreciate this version more because we’re turned on by combat (rawr), but what gets me going is the intentionality and purpose of this story. It catapults the whole thing into realms of triumphant cosmic bigness.

Christmas isn’t just a serene, tender caveside birth. Christmas is the first step of a rescue mission. This is Jesus rolling up his sleeves and jumping without a parachute into the mess of the world, because you don’t need a parachute when you have authority to take your own life back up again (John 10:18). The manger led to the cross; the cross was Satan’s final foiling, where Jesus forever broke his lawful grip on humanity’s souls.

Christmas is bigger than our pain.

Fast forward three decades from the manger. When Jesus stands before Israel and says that he has overcome the world, he doesn’t mean preventing all suffering. He went into suffering first, and we his followers are expected to, well, follow. But preventing despair? Overcoming the assault against our inner joy, bringing us an unassailable hope? You bet he’ll do that. His first words were to quote Isaiah 61, talking about “binding up the brokenhearted”. Jesus might not stop every disaster, but he will stop desolation in our hearts; he might not heal every body, but he will heal any soul.

If we ask.

That’s what I had never done, at least not in this area of my life. I did have legitimate disappointment connected with Christmas, though I was learning not to be too Grinchy about it around other people because they’re enjoying the season and why should I be the wet blanket. But to be honest, a bit of self-pity and bitterness had mixed itself into my attitude. It’s sneaky that way. And it doesn’t please God. To struggle with Christmas is natural for some of us, but to hold resentment is to withhold the honor due to all that Jesus has accomplished for us.

I’m not saying God is aloof from suffering; far from it. He cares very much about the hardships of our lives. There are real heartbreaks. Those have a welcome and concerned audience before the Throne.

What I’m saying is, there is still a forward-looking hope for this season,

This is what God spoke to me this month. Something like, I want Christmas back for your life. Not Get over it already, but something much more gracious and understanding. Bitterness had no business burying my joy. I want Christmas back for your life.

So I got a tree.

It wasn’t about family or tradition anymore. It was a handy way for me to make Christ bigger than my past, thunking down in my living room a physical symbol of Christ’s victory. This tree reminds me of Christ’s tree, the mission that started at the manger, finished at the cross and empty tomb, and will culminate one day in the seventh vial.

Oh yes…did I mention that true good really is coming? That one day every tear will be wiped away and all heartbreak and flaw will be redeemed? That we will leave in the presence of Christ forever? That is what was finally kicked into action here. And the nativity scene was the first domino.

If you are struggling with disappointment this Christmas season, give it to God. There’s a hope and a humility to that. That means accepting that God cares very much, that he might do something about it, and that he will heal your soul for sure. There is tremendous grace and love available for your wounds. It also means admitting that your hurt is not bigger than God. I don’t mean to sound insensitive. But John 16:33 is true: whatever pain we experience in this life is only temporary. The best is yet to come.

And given the price Jesus paid to accomplish this, I say, the least we can do is to let Christmas overcome.