Blue Christmas
Elvis Presley sang about having a “Blue Christmas.” Now we all know there’s no such thing as blue snowflakes. Ice, although it’s pictured sometimes in paintings as blue, is not. What did he mean when he sang that song? Well it’s pretty obvious when we really listen to it or we read the lyrics. The person who is the subject of the song has lost their lover at Christmas time. And being “blue” is an old slang term for being sad.
How many people are “blue” each year at Christmas time? Saddened by being alone.
Obviously there are too many as the suicide rate shoots up. Hotlines are used three to five times more over the Christmas holiday period than any other time of the year. Think of our military personnel standing alone in foreign lands all over the world and for the past several years since the September 11th attacks, standing on a battlefield. Not knowing if they’d get home for another Christmas.
And there are those who are in hospitals and nursing homes and even those who are incarcerated.
But take a moment and think about what God said in Isaiah Chapter 53, verse 4. From the New International Version it reads, “Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted.”
Think about that for a moment.
Scripture says, “We,” saw Jesus as being struck by God. We saw the Son of the Living God struck down by His Father in our finite or our small way of seeing things and all we saw was God’s judgment and His being a mean tyrant. Just as the devil would have us see.
But what we missed so drastically was that Jesus took our, “Infirmities and our sorrows,” onto His own shoulders by a free will act. An act of Jesus’ own choosing based on His knowledge of the Father’s plans and desire to save mankind.
Jesus willingly took upon Himself our pain, our infirmities, our sadness, our depression, our sicknesses, our lowness and as this chapter of Scripture goes on to say even our, “transgressions,” and paid the price for every bit of them. And this applies to a “Blue Christmas,” as well.
There’s no reason to continue in sadness. There’s no reason to live life empty and void. There’s no reason to go through life unfulfilled, when Jesus stands at the door to your heart and knocks. Won’t you answer? Will you invite Him into your heart and allow Him to take your life into His?
