Complaining at Christmas?
The Wise Men Journeying to Bethlehem – James Jacques Joseph Tissot
It’s Christmas week. The fourth week of Advent. The time when all the scurrying and baking and frenetic wrapping reach their zenith. This can also be a season ripe for complaint.
Complaint about the weather. Complaint about traffic jams, visiting relatives, toddler fits, and shopping trips. In the midst of candy canes and popcorn cake, we prop-up idyllic Christmas celebrations, which can be unexpected setups for disappointment. Even in this season of comfort and joy, grumbling can rise like steam from the wassail.
I’m certainly not immune to complaining. Even if I don’t voice my dissatisfaction, my mind is all too eager to write a negative script. Why? M. Craig Barnes suggests, “Complaining is usually a veiled lament about deeper issues of the soul.” (Pastor as Minor Poet, 16) Barnes goes on to add, “The primary symptom of a soul that has become sick is that it becomes blind to the poetry of life.” (38) When we complain, the presenting issue may not be the issue.
Complaint may seem off-topic for an Advent meditation, but the ubiquity of societal (and personal) grumbling is evidence of our longing. If we’re wrapped too tightly in wish dreams, our senses dull to the grand story unfolding before us. How enthralling, explosive, and poetic was the Incarnation! The shattering of time with the advent of the Christ-child was a longing fulfilled. A promise kept. The genesis of hope and assurance of renewal that affects this very moment.
Even so, we wait. Our souls lament as we cry, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”
And yet there’s a song in the air! Can you hear the Creator singing His melody of grace harmonized with justice, mercy, and kindness? Release yourself into the mystery, wonder, and beauty of Salvation’s song that satisfies our soul’s longing and extinguishes complaint.
As we celebrate Christmas this week, let’s remember the One who had justification to complain, yet never did. Who with incomparable humility carried the Song of Love to the Cross and sung redemption into eternity. Thanks be to God for the gift of our Savior — Jesus!
Merry Christmas!
A Prayer against Complaint
Holy Song-Singer and Word of Life,
Jesus, our Savior, strong and good;
Forgive my complaint and steep me in joy —
Have mercy on me, a sinner.
“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!”
(Philippians 2:5–8, NIV)