Peter Witkowski Christmas, Pain & Suffering

When Thanksgiving is Depressing

When thanksgiving is depressingMy heart was pained.  Ironically enough, the cause of my anxiousness was an event devoted to the theme of thanksgiving. As I sat through three cycles of videos, testimonies, and songs, my heart sank deeper and deeper into despair.

I heard various Christians talk about the Jesus who gave grandparents great families, who gave widowers new spouses, and who made sick children new. But the Jesus who wept over his friend’s death, who suffered on the cross, and who ordained for the apostle Paul to be tortured, robbed, and shipwrecked was nowhere to be found during this holiday.

Moreover, the God who comforts the daughter who buries her father and her mother within a blink of each other was not mentioned. The God who promises to vindicate the abused child was overlooked. And the God who sustains parents as they place their newborn under a tombstone was omitted. In his place, I was offered a Jesus who looked remarkably like the genie from Aladdin (minus the blue skin and red sash). Rub the bottle; say the magic prayer; and poof, your best life now.

I was grieved because this shrunken view of God does injustice to both the gospel and our savior that I have come to love. If our boasts about God are always linked to material gains and physical health, we’ve missed out on the greatest benefits of the gospel. The beauty of the gospel is best seen when health, wealth, and physical happiness our ripped from our arms.The awesomeness of the gospel is having nothing and discovering joyful reality that God is everything. As Christians, we don’t have to brush our suffering under the rug, assuming we lack the faith of the super spiritual and hoping that our next year will be magically better. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10:  

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

As we slide out from the Thanksgiving table into the Christmas season, we should thank God for our families, our health, and for everything and cross_jesus_wood_236183anything that contributes to our happiness. All good gifts come from above! But we also must realize that the beauty of the Jesus does not end with the safe and serene pictures of the Christ child lying in a designer manger surrounded by non-smelly animals. Our savior went onto the bloody agony of the cross. And as he did, Jesus both experienced our pain and then defeated its source. Through his life, death, and resurrection, Christ offers hope, joy, and peace to the grieving daughter, the hurt child, and the heartbroken parents. Jesus offers us an eternal life that transcends our earthly trappings whether good or bad. Our greatest gain is not a great family portrait placed on fireplace mantel. It’s Christ! Him, we can never lose!

As we prepare to celebrate the holidays listed on our calendars, we should not assume that our churches exist to demonstrate the end of suffering. We exist to show world that Jesus triumphs over suffering through the cross! And when the unfathomably huge God of the Bible is proclaimed, I cannot help but be thankful!   

Peter Witkowski Christmas

Keeping it Real This Christmas

Keeping It Real This Christmas

“I believe in UPS,” chirped my toddler brother as he took off to answer the door bell. He had heard my father playfully talk about Santa Clause. He had even seen a few packages addressed from Santa put under our large Christmas tree that was adorned with host of ornaments, red bows and candy canes. But as my little brother opened the front door, he was once again greeted with the appearance of a brown clad UPS man, holding cardboard boxes with large black letters. Although the recently arrived packages- as the ones before- would be hurried away to my parent’s upstairs bedroom to be transformed into glorious presents attired with ribbons, soft lace, and pretty bows that radiated light across room, my little brother was still aware of their source. He happily put his trust in the very plain but very real UPS delivery man.

We too must be careful not to become distracted from reality this Christmas season.  Though Christmas stories are very delightful, we must not let the holiday become defined by the stories of a red nosed reindeer, or of a green Grinch with a heart two sizes small, or even of a miser who gives Bob Cratchit that much deserved pay raise. We must remember that the true Christmas story is about Jesus.

Baby Jesus was real just like you and me. He felt the cool damp air of the stable as it flowed across his tiny body. He could smell the freshly laid hay in his crib composed of a musty wooden manger. He heard the sweaty, mud splattered animals neighing. He was struck by the appearance of his first visitors, the shepherds, who were clad in dirty tunics that reeked from days of working under a hot sun. When Jesus was circumcised at the temple, he let out a blood curdling scream! And, he smiled and clapped when he saw the presents that wise men carried. Jesus was really human. The testimony of the shepherds, Simeon, Anna, the Magi and his earthly parents accurately reported the arrival of our Savior. But, what we know about Jesus does not end with his birth.

The apostle John noted this glorious truth in I John 1. He wrote that he and others had, “heard….seen with our eyes… [and] touched with our hands,” the grown Jesus (I John1:1). The apostles heard him lovingly converse with the rich young ruler in their guttural Hebrew dialect. They had seen Christ give life to Jarius’ sick daughter. They let large moist tears drip down their faces as Jesus died on the cross. But oh did they rejoice when they touched the red and purple stained bruises of the risen Jesus. They knew that Christ had come to save them! “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21)”. The first witnesses told others about Jesus’ life, hoping that all might find forgiveness and eternal life in the savior who began his life that Christmas morning long, long ago.

Just as my brother recognized that his Christmas packages came from UPS, let us recognize that the true joy of Christmas is found in Jesus Christ our Savior.

“Joy to the World the
Lord has Come! Let earth receive her King!”

This article was first publish in First Baptist Church Fairdale’s advent devotional, December 2010.

Peter Witkowski Christmas, Pain & Suffering

The Dark Side of Christmas

dark side of Christmas         After quick scan of the Christmas tree, we all let out a sigh of relief and then began giggling. My younger siblings and I had once again found our favorite Christmas ornament stealthily hidden behind the dark green branches of our tree. With glee, we energetically returned the cardboard decoration, containing my older brother’s preschool class photo (a photo which had been snapped under protest) to the center of the tree. A few hours later, we would notice that our well-teased older brother had moved the ornament back to the dark side of the tree. Undaunted, we would once again take it upon ourselves to cheerfully return the pouty face picture to the front of the tree. As the years went by, we launched an unofficial Witkowski family tradition ornament hide and seek!

In the same way, many of us view Christmas as a time to play hide and seek with the undesirable pictures of life. We strive to jingle all the way through December. Everywhere we look, we see smiling children, happy families, and cheery movies. When we peek into church, we catch a view of nativity sets staffed by cute, little faces adorned in colorful bedding and drapes. We naturally conclude that Christmas is about being happy on earth. Seeking to comply with the Christmas way, we often spend several weeks each winter pretending that our lives are free from the consequences of the fall. We banish the images of a mother grieving the absence of her child, of an unemployed father unable to buy gifts for his children, and of a child distressed by the absence of a grandparent to the undecorated side of our trees. We try to hide the dark side of Christmas.

Though society may not see the sorrow sketched into our hearts, we have to admit that our sorrow returns often to the front of our minds. Regardless how hard we strive to greet people with an upbeat, “Merry Christmas,” we cannot will ourselves to happiness. As white lights begin to sparkle, we find ourselves alone in darkness.

But the good news of the Christmas story is that we are not called to the impossible task of wishing away our worries. Nor are we called to ride a one-horse-open-sleigh to other extreme of decorating our houses with grumpy pictures. We are called to overcome our despair through Christ.

Jesus came to earth to save his hurting people from the darkness. Jesus came so that the innocent, little babies Herod murdered could rest in the arms of God the Father (Mat 2:16-18). Jesus came so that the weeping voices that echoed long ago through the hills Bethlehem could have comfort. Jesus came, lived, died, and rose again to overcome the evil from without and the evil from within. Jesus came to give the sorrow laden people who believe on him hope and everlasting joy.

And as we celebrate Christ birth thousands of years later, we do not have to hide our sorrows in darkness, greeting everyone with one of Santa’s famous “Ho, Ho Ho!” Nor do we make our suffering the center of the holiday season, complaining Grinch-ly that everything happy is but, “noise, noise noise!” As Christians, we overcome the darkness of holiday depression with the truth of the gospel that appeared in the form of baby!  As C.J. Mahaney writes, “Don’t listen to yourself; talk to yourself…expend your energies admiring, exploring, expositing, and extolling Jesus Christ” (Mahaney, 2002).

As we prepare to open presents, we can admit that we miss seeing grandma sitting in her favorite chair. We can reminisce about our spouse’s cheerful smile that accompanied every plate of scrumptious pancakes. And, we can shed tears for the baby who never saw its parent’s modest little tree. We can mourn the effects of sin that removed God’s blessings from our lives. But, we do not stop here.

We begin preaching to ourselves. We rejoice this Christmas because Jesus’s arrival points us to the gift of eternal life, a gift that far outweighs any amount of earthly suffering. We will once again see our loved ones in glory and know that one day all of this world’s injustice will be set aright. As we gaze at candy canes, we know that God’s mercy is new every morning, caring us through all of our struggles. We can trust God’s promise to never leave of forsake us. And as we sip hot cocoa, we can encourage one another with the assurance of Christ’s next coming. We look forward to the new heavens and new earth where the:

The voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her,
Nor the voice of crying.

No more shall an infant from there live but a few days,
Nor an old man who has not fulfilled his days; (Isaiah 65:19a-20).

As we remember the one who was born manger, we can sing “With heart, and soul, and voice” because “Jesus Christ was born to save.”

This Christmas, we do not have to wish our suffering out of sight. Nor do we have to display it prominently for all to see. Rather, we admit that we suffer. Then, we embrace our savior who suffered and died to save his people. Because of Christ, we who are predisposed to haunt the darkest corners of the Christmas season may now joyful sing:

“Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel!”