Why is it that Christmas can open a floodgate of emotion?
Memories seem stronger. Highs are higher. Lows are lower.
A universal flood of emotion ranging from the highest of highs to the darkest of lows seems to engulf. Inexplicable grace springs forth, newly unearthed retribution sprouts. A heart's dormant garden suddenly blooms its fruit.
Perhaps it's because our Lord's emotion was poured out on this day of gift giving.
Perhaps, just perhaps, as light was declared to divide the darkness with His utterance, and it shines from that day forth, this day, the day of his firstborn, was declared as His day of emotion. This was our Lord's decreed day of vengeance and forgiveness, anger and happiness, joy and sadness.
Perhaps a flood of mixed emotion is showered upon us during this season. He loved us and in acting upon that fathomless love, the child He named above all men was sent to us, but not without the knowledge of the unmeasured heartache that both He and His child would pay.
Perhaps during this season we impassionately call Christmas, that emotion still pours out. It rains. It snows. Sprinkles upon all of us.
Perhaps this day is our Lord's one weakspot. Perhaps the remembrance of that day, for Him, causes both a wince and upturned lip.
How possible is it that He has forgotten that day?
I cannot be persuaded that our Lord does not have emotion.
I cannot be moved from the thought that this is both the most glorious of days and the saddest.
How worthy we must be in his eyes.
"I will punish my son that you might go free. My pure son. He has done no wrong. My firstborn. My only."
We've all had that freeze-frame moment. You've had it. Where, for however brief or long, the standstill of time blurts in, stops you in your mind, and you're halted, frozen, overcome by confusing clarity. A breath-taking instant of crystal vision you could not begin to describe to a sane other. A moment you cannot truly explain to yourself.
It's the Lord's knock on the door of your intellect. And you're stripped of reasoning for a moment. A heaviness in your chest overcomes you and for a measured time you realize the world is larger than you.
It's His tear-bought embrace.
Hold on. Give in.
And then rejoice.
You're in his wings.
