“I will say to God, my rock, ‘Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about in sorrow because of the enemy’s oppression?’ My adversaries taunt me, as if crushing my bones, while all day long they say to me, ‘Where is your God?’ Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Christmas is the happiest time of the year except when it isn’t. During the Advent season everything is supposed to be perfect. For many people, though, this season is hard. They’ve experienced loss or hurt that makes the season anything other than sweet. The cultural pressure to be happy just makes it harder. What do we do when we’re supposed to be happy, but we’re just not. We go to the Scriptures, and especially the Psalms. Let’s talk about this one and what it has to do with Advent.

One of the more meaningful offerings I am starting to see more and more frequently from various religious and community groups during the Advent season is a Blue Christmas service. The whole idea for these services is that for people who have experienced loss during the holiday season, the pain of grief can be especially acute.

The Blue Christmas service offers its attendees a dual reminder. The first is that they are not alone physically. There are others who have also experienced loss during this season. The second is that they are not alone spiritually. There is a God who cares about them, and who will enter into their grief with them to accompany them on their journey out of it if they are willing to walk with Him.

Sometimes, though, even getting to that kind of a place can take a monumental effort on our part. When our grief is recent or raw or even simply big enough, the idea of being around other people any more than we absolutely have to is a decidedly unwelcome one. The chorus of Don Chaffer’s wonderful song expressing his grief over losing his mother, Leave Me Alone, puts this feeling well. “Leave me alone/Not because I’m angry/Just because I need to hear myself breathe/And be alive/And wonder why she’s gone.”

It’s not just grief that haunts us at this time of year. Any kind of pain or turmoil is rendered all the harder as we walk – and sometimes just wander – through the happiest time of year. What are we supposed to do in these moments during a season that people expect to be merry and bright? Simply wear one of the million shirts with those words printed on them and fake it?

Well, that’s one option. And it’s an option I suspect not a few people take. Just slap on a fake smile, push all those hard emotions to the side, and by sheer force of will enjoy the moments we are in now. Then perhaps we get rip roaring drunk on New Year’s Eve in hopes of forgetting about the last year’s worth of pain, and start over fresh. But deferred emotions like that don’t tend to go away. They patiently gather strength and force themselves upon us later on. Usually sometime in mid-January.

There’s another way. We can confront them honestly and deal with them with the help of the Scriptures, especially the Psalms. One of the most wonderful things about the Scriptures is that their authors are honest about life. They are honest about its joys, but also its heartaches. They don’t ever sugarcoat the challenges of being a follower of an invisible God in a broken world. If you spent time with them, you will find places where the authors express exactly what it is you are going through; where they put to proper word the chaotic ball of emotions you have had writhing just beneath your happy surface.

The Psalms are especially good for this. There are a number of psalms in that great collection that are known as Psalms of Lament. These are songs in which the author expresses pain and grief to the Lord in no uncertain terms. In the psalms of lament we find lines like this: “My years have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, ‘Where is your God?’ I remember this as I pour out my heart: how I walked with many, leading the festive procession to the house of God, with joyful and thankful shouts.”

Have you perhaps been there? If you are a follower of Jesus, especially one who has had any kind of a leading role in the church, I suspect you have. You remember the times when everything was good, and God was clearly near. But those memories are like a cruel taunt now. And the world doesn’t have anything better to offer. It only mocks you for believing in God in the first place. You’re so sick from the emotional chaos you have been experiencing that you can’t even eat. Your tears are your only food.

Then there is the back and forth of wanting to experience the joy of the Lord again because you know what that sweet embrace feels like, but feeling like you are looking at it from the position of an outsider. “Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God. I am deeply depressed; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.”

And sometimes, the pain we are in is because of someone else. Our enemies have beset us in one form or fashion. They taunt and jeer and pile on whenever they can. “I will say to God, my rock, ‘Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about in sorrow because of the enemy’s oppression?’ My adversaries taunt me, as if crushing my bones, while all day long they say to me, ‘Where is your God?'”

Have you been there? What do we do when we are in this kind of a place? The psalmist here leaned in to what he knew to be true. He called himself forward toward the faith he knew was right and justified. “Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God.”

This doesn’t mean embracing it was immediate or easy. In fact, if you are paying attention, that marks the second time I’ve repeated that same verse. Or so it seems. The reality is that I have now quoted from two different verses in Psalm 42. They simply both say the same thing. He had to keep calling himself forward toward this place. There was an ongoing temptation to lean in the world’s direction, to give into the world’s taunting. Yet he knew that wasn’t true. He knew who his God was. He had experienced it before. So he called himself forward into what he knew was true.

Okay, but what does any of this have to do with the Advent season? How does celebrating the birth of a baby lift us out of a place of sadness or depression? Because it reminds us of what is true. It reminds us in a powerful way of who our God is. It reminds us that the faithfulness the psalmist celebrated here, and which served as the anchor point he was using to pull himself up out of one of life’s many broken places is justified, but in a way even more powerful than he could have imagined.

When the world was broken and depression was the only posture that really made sense to most people; when hope was fleeting and it seemed the wrong would always prevail; God Himself entered the world. He took on human flesh, and came as a helpless baby. He put Himself right down in the midst of the mess with us so that He could redeem the mess from the inside out. He came to begin the process of restoring what is broken. He came to proclaim the advent of a kingdom of life, where all the things that make us sad will one day be banished entirely, and where joy and gladness will be the norm. And He didn’t wait to do all of this at a time when we were sufficiently prepared to receive it. He came when everything was still a mess. He came when we were still in need. He came when we were still resisting Him. His love for us was so great that when He knew the time was right, He came even though we weren’t right. That’s not a magic wand to make our sorrows go away, but knowing what’s true shows us the path out of them.

As we continue now into the third week of this Advent season whose theme is joy, may the true and lasting joy of the One who gave up glory to come and suffer alongside us in order to redeem our suffering bring you hope and peace as you reflect on His great love. May this joy become the lens that allows you to see the path through your temporary brokenness to the wholeness and life waiting for you in His eternal kingdom. May you receive your King and live the life He came to bring.