We had our annual Blue Christmas worship service last night. This is a service where we recognize that for many Christmas is anything but merry. The holiday season can be difficult for those who are grieving a loss, those who struggle with illness, injury, depression, or financial stress or those who are burdened too much by other cares of this world. So we gather as a community to express and acknowledge these emotions, and remember that it was into such a world as this, to ordinary people in difficult circumstances, that God's love took on flesh in Jesus.
As we lit candles and shared our losses and burdens, I was really moved by how each represented relationship or connection. We lit candles for those we had died, and grieved the loss not only of that person's life but of our continued relationship with them. We also lit candles for friends who lad lost loved ones, an act of caring and an affirmation of connection and relationship with them.
And isn't our cry of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" a cry for relationship with the holy, with whom we have felt separated, estranged perhaps. It's a cry of need, and of vulnerability. Come to us again this Christmas, Lord. Come again this Christmas.
And the joy of Christmas is that God responds to our cry, coming to us vulnerable as well, in the form of a newborn baby, trusting our love to care for him as we want to trust God to care for us.
It is with this background that I heard the song "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" by Darlene Love very differently this year. A cry for relationship, for reconnection, without which "it's not like Christmas at all." But in the hands of the (now 73 year old) Darlene Love, it's less the poignant cry of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" but an anthem of need and trust that her "baby" will come home, will come to her, and it will be Christmas. It's a song of faith, and a song of joy. Amen and Amen. Enjoy.
This video is from Darlene Love singing on David Letterman for the last time, because Dave is retiring. So which the song is joyful, the circumstances are poignant as well. Blue Christmas indeed.
-- Rev. Christine Ng
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