The Letdown

Even the optimist suffers a letdown in January.

Advent is four weeks of excitement. We retrieve decorations from storage and arrange them carefully. Countless candles are lit. Icicle lights are strung along the roofline and faithfully plugged in every evening. We sing seasonal songs, silly and serious.

We organize a shopping list and purchase each gift. Amazon boxes show up within forty-eight hours and are hidden under the bed until they can be wrapped.

Our travel plans are finalized: flights, rental car, hotel. There are lots of calls and text messages finding out exactly who will be there. We’ll need that coat again. Haven’t worn it in two years. OH NO!! It’s too small. No worries, just buy another.

We share Advent anticipation with our church family. The weekly readings start in Isaiah. We meditate on the Children of Israel in darkness, waiting for the Light of the World, looking forward to the fulfillment of promises made to Abraham and David.

Holiday commercials are packed with gentle flurries and perfect trees. Everyone shows up nicely dressed and is overjoyed to be together. We all get what we were hoping for and this time, it really does make us happy. Mom and dad hug each other and smile. Children share. A fire on the hearth quietly crackles.

Christmas Eve we read from Luke chapter two. We can almost quote it. “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed . . .”

Jesus is born! His coming is objective reality.

Christmas Eve winds toward midnight. Maybe we’re in church. Maybe we’re home with chocolates and egg nog. It’s almost impossible to sleep with visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads, and we don’t even know what a sugar plum looks like.

You wake up with a headache on the twenty-fifth of December. You slept too long. Or not long enough. The morning coffee and breakfast are good. Deep down inside, you know it’s just another day. You open some presents. The shirt doesn’t fit and it’s the wrong brand. You smile and act excited. You’re tired but feel guilty napping because missing a minute of this day would be a micro-tragedy.

The flight to the family event is delayed. You arrive exhausted. That ONE family member who is SO hard to deal with – there they are! Same as always! Your kids fight with their cousins. You’re bored. The cold is oppressive. And then it ends too soon. The Christmas hamster dies. You fly home. You need a Clif Bar to scale the mountain of laundry. Work is crazy, just trying to catch up. And then the calendar rolls into a new year and you are too tired to stay up until midnight. You think about how much older you’re going to be in 2018 and that you need too lose a few pounds. You scroll through Facebook and for a few moments feel very alone in this world. You open the credit card app and the pending balance momentarily takes your breath away.

Even the optimist suffers a letdown in January.

We are the people of the Already and the Not Yet. He already came. He has not yet returned. We are a redeemed people, brought to life through his coming, victorious in his completed work on the cross. Yet, all creation groans under the weight of the curse. I am part of creation.

Join me in the anticipation of Advent, living in the shadow, looking forward to His second coming. Whether we meet him in death, or in the sky, it will be a “Christmas Day” - a glorious fulfillment of everything for which we were created with NO letdown.