For over a decade, Christmas Eve felt like one of the busiest nights of the year. Like elves in Santa’s workshop, my husband and I labored together building kitchen sets, racetracks, bicycles, and a variety of other toys while our excited and expectant children attempted to sleep upstairs. Our evening efforts awoke to morning squeals of delight.
Now that our children are older, our Christmas Eves look less busy and our Christmas mornings feel more subdued. I miss tiny feet rushing down the stairs with unbridled anticipation. I miss the exuberant cacophony of everyone sharing all at once what they’re most excited about without taking a moment to breathe. I find myself wondering: Where did my young children go? How did these precious moments pass so quickly?
A sigh escapes my lips as I remember and long for what has passed. Christmas can be a season of nostalgia, a reminder that time marches on, often bringing unwanted change. For a variety of reasons—sickness, marriage, death, distance, relational brokenness—there may be an empty seat at your table this year. Or, perhaps the special moments you were hoping to create succumbed to tears of frustration and discontent.
While the Christmas season offers cheerful songs and joy-filled messages, it can also highlight loss and disappointment. There’s a sense of homesickness, a longing for once was and can never be again.
Keep Looking Back
As we look back in remembrance, it’s helpful to look back even further—to the very first Christmas. Jesus, our Immanuel, came to earth to dwell with us, to ransom us, to free us, and redeem us. Veiled in flesh, he left his heavenly home for our sake. He endured homesickness so he could bring us home. He emptied himself so that we could fully live (Phil. 2:7; John 10:10).
He returned to heaven, with a promise: “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:2–3). Jesus dwelt with us so that we can look forward to dwelling with him. In the midst of looking back, there’s also a right looking forward.
Keep Looking Forward
When nostalgia breathes a sigh of regret, we may feel as though our home will never feel like home again. In an earthly sense, some losses here may never be fully healed. We ache for a better home and in the midst of Christmas rejoicing, we mourn. We live the paradox, “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10).
Thankfully, just as Jesus came to free us from sin, he’s coming back to free us from sighing and sorrow. He’s got a homecoming prepared that’s everlasting, full of joy and gladness. In the midst of nostalgia, we can read these words with a thrill of hopeful anticipation:
“And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isa. 35:10).
Our earthly homes shadow our heavenly reality. One day, there will be no more sighing. Everlasting joy will replace nostalgia. Gladness will replace sorrow. Fullness will replace emptiness.
We will finally be home.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION/ APPLICATION:
What circumstances or situations make you feel nostalgic at Christmas?
In what ways do you find yourself hoping in your earthly home more than your heavenly home? How can that lead to disappointment at Christmas?
In what ways do you feel “sorrowful, yet rejoicing” this Christmas? What does it look like for joy and sorrow to walk side by side in your life today?
How can the hope of Jesus’ return allow you to worship with joy today?
Melissa Kruger serves as the Director of Women’s Content for The Gospel Coalition (TGC). She’s the author of The Envy of Eve: Finding Contentment in a Covetous World, Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood, In All Things: A Nine Week Devotional on Unshakeable Joy and 5 Things to Pray for Your Children. Her husband, Mike, is the president of Reformed Theological Seminary and they have three children. She writes at Wit’s End and you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.