By the Way: Tears at Christmas

By Rev. Nancy Cocks on December 28, 2024.

I listen to CBC Calgary often. When their ‘Make the Season Kind’ campaign went over the goal of $1.5 million for Alberta foodbanks this month, my eyes filled with tears. Such generosity in a challenging time! Tears of joy.

Later that day, I read a news article about twin Palestinian sisters, both admitted to PhD programs in Ontario, killed in an air strike while they were lined up, waiting to leave Gaza.

Tears of sorrow – for future hopes crushed by bitter violence. Just two examples of the complexity of human nature. Deep generosity opening up hope for unknown others, yet deep fear and anger of unknown others crushing hope.

The Biblical stories of Christmas reveal the same dichotomy. As Luke tells it, the birth of new life was promised to us through a child born in a humble stable to parents who risked their futures on that baby.

As Matthew tells it, that baby provoked jealousy in an anxious tyrant who ordered the killing of hundreds of other infants who seemed to threaten his grip on power. Tears of joy and tears of sorrow.

The Bible embraces both in the Christmas stories because human life will face both on any given day in any given year.

We don’t know what the year ahead will hold. Kindness and generosity reaching out to help others? Tyranny provoked to extremes by the desire for power?

Both are possible on any given day in any given year, given the unpredictable human heart. I don’t know which possibility will bring you to tears, if you allow yourself tears about the news these days.

I hope the year ahead brings you reason to shed tears of joy. Yet, if you find yourself moved to tears of sorrow, know that the God we meet in Jesus Christ weeps with you – and invites you to respond with kindness and generosity – and with the humility each newborn calls from us all.

For humility recognizes that life is a gift which requires the best each of us can offer to every life, on every given day, every given year.

Rev. Dr. Nancy Cocks, retired Presbyterian minister

12
-11