The Promise, Pt. 4
The holiday season is not always met with joy and excitement. In fact, the opposite can be true for the majority of American adults this time of year, and the statistics bear this out. Numerous studies show increases in loneliness, depression, and anxiety, with as many as 89% of adults feeling significant stress. Furthermore, a staggering 64% of those with existing mental health issues report that their conditions worsen this time of year.
While the reasons for and responses to these issues vary and are highly nuanced, they still serve as a powerful reminder of why we need Christmas. Christmas is not just a celebration of the birth of our Savior and King, but a reminder of how that Savior and King chose to identify with human suffering.
The Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 has long been associated with Jesus Christ by Christian theologians and Bible scholars, giving the reader vivid details of the person and life of the one who would come to heal and redeem Israel. We read of an interesting description of this suffering servant in Isaiah 53:3, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not."
As popular and loved as Jesus was by some, and as many great things that there were which he accomplished while on earth, he likewise was "despised and rejected" by many, including some who were closest to him. Though he was God in the flesh, Jesus was well-acquainted with human sorrow, suffering, and stress. He mourned the death of his close friend Lazarus in John 11, and obviously endured tremendous physical, emotional, and spiritual pain as he was punished by Pontius Pilate and eventually crucified. Jesus even sweat drops of blood from his forehead while praying with great anguish in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:44).
Suffering is a harsh reality of life that we all experience and must learn how to endure. It is often through our suffering that we learn life's most cherished lessons, and it's even through our suffering that we become more like Jesus. Paul says in Philippians 3 that he intends to share in the sufferings of Christ and to become "like him in his death" so that he may eventually "attain the resurrection from the death." Paul knew the secret of life in Christ - that we are not called to avoid suffering or to minimize it, but rather we are called to embrace suffering through the power of Christ and his Spirit.
This Christmas season, you may be suffering or dealing with significant sorrow. And if you aren't, you may know someone who is. If you can relate, then be encouraged that Christmas marks the birth of the One who chose to become like one of us so that he could bear our griefs, carry our sorrows, and eventually be pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, and take up on the chastisement that was due to us so that we would be given eternal peace (Isaiah 53:4-5). In doing so, Jesus gave our suffering meaning and purpose, and Christmas reminds us that God sovereignly determined to resolve our suffering through the loving sacrifice of his Son.