The Christmas Journey
Christmas Eve, 1997

Don't you just love travelling -- especially over holidays! Carol and I will experience something similar on Monday when we leave for Toronto. Let me anticipate with you what it will be like:

We will begin, of course with packing. This will go fairly smoothly -- as long as I stay out of the way. We discovered long ago that I am incompetent in this area and as long as I accept that we will do OK.

In any case, we will be up ridiculously late on Sunday night, and we will wake up ridiculously early on Monday. We will frantically run around the house making sure we haven't forgotten anything. Finally the exciting moment will come and we will climb into a little metal box and voluntarily imprison ourselves for 9 hours.

During the first hour of imprisonment the prisoners will all be fairly pleasant -- the reality of our predicament has not yet hit us. We might even sing songs or play car games as though we were not really prisoners at all -- as though we were going on a picnic.

This peaceful interlude will not last, though. It will come to an abrupt end when one of the prisoners asks the innocent question: "how much longer will it be? Are we almost there?" This will signal the first of a series of prisoner revolts.

During the second and third hour we will pull out all of the stops to quell the rebellion: We will give in to all of the prisoners demands. We will tell them stories. We will listen to knock knock jokes. We will listen to Wee Sing Silly Songs tapes until our brains are like Jelly. Finally I will yell, "I can't take anymore" and shut the tape recorder off. For the next five minutes we will travel in gloomy silence while my poor children try to figure out why Dad is so irritable and wait for me to apologize.

When we are about halfway there one of the prisoners will say, "What's that funny smell." I of course will immediately recognize that this is just a ruse to get us to stop. I will insist for the next fifty miles that there IS no funny smell -- and that if there is it is coming from another car, not OUR car. OUR car does not make funny smells.

In fifth or sixth hour the prisoners will finally grow weary and most of them will fall asleep. If I am driving I will grimly force my eyelids to stay open while I eat celery sticks. I hate celery. But I find it so unpleasant, and it makes so much noise when you eat it that it is almost as good as Mountain Dew to keep me awake.

Half an hour before arrival we will all fall apart. Doesn't matter how long the trip is -- there is an invariable law of car travel with children: The last half hour is hell.

Then, finally we will arrive, it will be all over, we will forget all of the misery -- until we do it all in reverse three days later.

Distance

So why do we do it -- and not just once, but over and over again? This will be something like our 15th trip to Toronto in 5 years. We already have all the bill-boards memorized. Why do we keep going back?

The reason is simple. Distance. We travel because we are far from those we love and we long to be close. We long to be able to talk to them, to share their world. We want to be able to hold Melissa Caroline, our tiny new neice -- just two months old tomorrow. We want to be able to laugh at Rob changing diapers. We want to see the love and glowing pride in their faces as they pretend that she is smiling at them.

AT&T tries to get us to think that we can reach out and touch through a plastic handpiece and fiber optic cables. AT&T LIES. Phone calls can never satisfy our desire for closeness and relationship -- they just intensify the longing.

And so we travel. Year after year we imprison ourselves in metal boxes of various sizes and we hurl ourselves through space at ridiculous speeds desperately trying to close the gap.

But then when we do bridge the geographical gap a funny thing happens. We discover that being together is not QUITE what we had imagined it would be. We find that our desire for closeness cannot be satisified just by bridging geographical distance.

Sometimes it hits us like a load of bricks: A place at the table is empty. An argument blackens Christmas morning. Dark memories that we thought had been hidden are revived.

But let's not be pessimistic. Let's say that everything is just the way you dreamed it to be. Even so, something will not be quite complete about it. O, I am not saying it will not be good to be together. It will be wonderful. Some of you will have great times with family or friends this Christmas. You will relish every moment. You will have good, meaningful conversations, hilarious laughter, great food. And when its all over, you will say -- that was the most wonderful Christmas. And in the next breath . . .

I wish it could last. I wish it could last.

You see, even the times we spend together that seem closest to perfect -- the Kodak moments -- are marred because they end so soon. We have just begun to have a taste of joy and its gone.

[Kodak lies too, by the way. That's why we spend so much effort trying to freeze those moments on film. O, if only I had my camera -- then perhaps I would be able to hang onto this moment for just a little bit longer.]

Even the PERFECT Christmas together can never REALLY be perfect because it will not last.

And so there is a wistfulness that hangs over us at Christmas. No matter how wonderful our times together may be, we will still ache for something more. O, we laugh away the ache -- calling it nostalgia. Or we smother it in activity -- if we keep ourselves busy enough, perhaps we won't notice that there's something missing.

But there IS something missing. Christmas brings out longings hidden deep within us -- longings for relationships that will not be separated by distance or broken by hate or severed by death. The little moments of joy at Christmas just emphasize our longing for joy that will not be cut short -- joy that will not fade away into a painfully sweet memory.


Spiritual Distance
So the problem of geographical distance that makes us travel at Christmas leads us to another problem -- the problem of spiritual distance. We were made to enjoy perfect, unending relationships. We were made to enjoy perfect, unending joy. We were made to be completely satisified. But we are NOT satisfied, and our moments of joy are FLEETING, and our relationships are all too easily SHATTERED.

We know that something is wrong -- something is missing. In fact we spend most of our lives frantically struggling to fill the gaping hole inside us.

It is a hole that can only be filled by God -- and it is there because we are distant from God. Our journeys can never cover this distance. You could travel the world over. You could spend seven years in Tibet with Brad Pitt. You could have the perfect marriage. Wonderful kids. You could have all the THINGS you've ever dreamed of.
The emptiness would still be there, because it can be filled only by God. He alone is the source of lasting joy, lasting relationships, complete satisfaction.

And we can't do a THING about it.

But God can! And he has. THAT is the great news this Christmas Eve.

God's Journey
On Christmas Eve, 2000 years ago, God went on a journey. He imprisoned himself in the narrow, cramped confines of a human body -- not for a nine hour trip to Toronto, but for a 33 year journey -- a journey of suffering -- a journey of poverty and thirst and hunger -- a journey of rejection and betrayal and finally death. Think of it: The Creator limited within the bounds of creation, encapsulated in a microscopic embryo. The timeless one, time-bound. The all-knowing imprisoned by culture and language. The giver of life, dying.

Although Christ Jesus was in very nature, God, He
"did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man
he humbled himself and became obedient to death--
even death on a cross!

Why did he do it? He did it for the same reason that we travel at Christmas -- to bridge the distance, to close the gap that separated us from him. To make it possible for us to have a our relationship with God restored -- to make it possible for us to come to God and to find our joy and satisfaction in him. Only God could bridge the gap, and at Christmas he did it. All he asks is that we turn to him and believe.

Our response

I hope that tomorrow will be a day full of joy for you -- the joy of gift-giving, the joy of family and friends, the joy of good food. But as wonderful as all of these are -- don't be fooled -- they cannot and will not satisfy. O, the good things in life should be enjoyed -- they are created by God and they are good. But they can never satisfy our longings. They are like windows through which we see the beauty of God. At best good things can only give you fleeting moments of joy -- they are not what your heart really longs for at Christmas.

Let these good things of life sharpen your hunger for what will really satisfy. And then when -- all too soon -- the joy Christmas is over, let it remind you that Jesus offers infinite, unending joy to all who turn to Him.

There are others of you here for whom all of this talk of the joys of Christmas must sound like a terrible joke. You face tomorrow without joy, anticipating little but loneliness and painful memories. As you face that loneliness, remember that what your heart really longs for is not the perfect family or the perfect Christmas celebration or gifts. What your heart longs for is God; let your loneliness remind you that God alone can satisfy.

Find your satisfaction in God this Christmas -- you will not be disappointed.