DE-STRESSING THE SILLY SEASON

Randle Bond

THE very thought of Christmas stresses out most of us, and distresses many. The year is coming to a close. We feel this expectation to play “happy families”; deciding on whose turn it is to host the family gathering.

Shopping centres “blackmail” us to buy presents that many of us don’t need. The tradition-bound person feels this obligation to reciprocate in the sending of greeting cards.

There are the reminders of broken relationships or scars of the past; endless Christmas events or recall of loneliness; and the pressures to connect this all together at the same time.

Talk to any business owner and you find that their clients always want things done before Christmas — often for no reason at all!

Feeling stressed yet in the face of impossible expectations? You should be. The silly season is upon us.

I could give you 10 tips to simplify Christmas, but you’ve probably heard it all before. Even tried to use many of them. Yet, for some reason, Christmas remains complicated and stressful.

These feelings we have as Christmas approaches unwittingly remind us why we need Christmas. Not for the food and presents, but to point us to our world of chaos at war with itself.

Each year our stress levels reveal to us the continuing lack of peace in our lives. It shows us that our desperate attempts to make life work fall short of our ideals. It shows us that the measures we use to define ourselves — careers, relationships, interests and events — are full of holes.

Many people blame or hate Christmas without realising that Christmas is just the catalyst to expose the brokenness that lies just beneath the surface. This brokenness needs to be confronted if we are to embrace life in fullness and have true peace in the midst of stress.

Otherwise the next Christmas will leave us feeling the same way, and probably a little bit worse.

This brokenness repeats itself year on year the world over as our world literally groans with a longing for redemption to something better.

As Christians, we don’t get a “get out of jail free” card from the brokenness of the world. Nor do we claim to have it better together. Christmas is a reminder that Jesus Christ came into the chaos of our world to bring his kingdom of peace among us.

Jesus’ kingdom broke into the world when he was born, and continues to break into our world today. Our community at RAFT isn’t perfect, but it is a place where Jesus’ kingdom is breaking in and broken people are finding hope, healing and peace.

What is the wisdom of Jesus’ kingdom that allows us to de-stress the silly season? It is actually a rhythm of life that finds its roots in the creation of the world and the šabat  (rest) that occurred when God’s work had been done.

Not that God was tired, but rest can be defined as “to be utterly satisfied with what has been done”. It is a concept that the Jewish people understood as šabbat (the Sabbath) that is fulfilled in Jesus. Sabbath rest isn’t laziness. And it’s not at all about idleness.

The inventors of the Sabbath understood this at a whole new level. Though the rules of the Sabbath appear burdensome, they did not exist to burden the people.

Judith Shulevitz wrote a great article on the Sabbath. She said: “You cannot downshift casually and easily, the way you might slip into bed at the end of a long day. This is why the Puritan and Jewish Sabbaths were so exactingly intentional, requiring extensive, advanced preparation — at the very least a scrubbed house, a full larder and a bath.

“The rules did not exist to torture the faithful. They were meant to communicate the insight that interrupting the ceaseless round of striving requires a surprisingly strenuous act of will, one that has to be bolstered by habit as well as by social sanction.”

It is something unnatural that requires discipline. It’s not physical work you need resting from. We get that rest. What we need rest from is the inner need to prove ourselves by having a perfect life, perfect relationships, perfect families!

Jesus fulfils the Sabbath and is the rest unto which the Sabbath has always pointed. In fulfilling the Sabbath, Jesus didn’t abolish it, but re-created it. Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath is the Lord of rest and therefore the one to go to for rest.

The Sabbath is no longer a day with strict boundaries. To become a Christian is to be able to look at your work and life the way God looks at his; something that is made complete in Jesus. This truth needs to be mined, applied and continually re-learned by every Christian.

Jesus says, “Come unto me all ye who are weary and need rest”. Jesus is saying that only through Him will you be able to get rest. You don’t need to do things to have rest; the work has already been done.

Religious people say that if I’m really good and do good works, then God will recognise me.

Others do the same thing trying to meet the standards of our society. Jesus says to “come to me to rest, I will give you a new identity apart from the broken things of this world and then you will truly find peace.” Jesus calls us to embrace him and to call others to embrace him and therefore reconcile relationships. The world lacks peace because it lacks the solution to truly redeem relationships; the hope and reconciliation Jesus offers.

So how can we find peace amongst the chaos of Christmas?  Take regular Sabbath time hourly, daily, weekly through the silly season. Do this to learn or remember how your story interacts with Jesus’ story; to understand the significance of what Jesus has done and is doing; to enjoy God’s creation; to contemplate; to pray for the redemption of the brokenness; to worship; to give thanks; to be refreshed by the Holy Spirit; and to do some inactive things.

Rest as an act of liberation that you are not defined by work, by how successful your family or relationships are or by how others see you, but you are defined in Christ and your relationship to him. Rest to declare that Jesus is Lord of your life. Rest to show that you trust that God is in control and sustaining the world (instead of you).

Rest so that you can fulfil the roles and do the tasks that God has set you here on earth to fulfill. Rest in Christ so that you may have the strength to reconcile relationships. Rest in Jesus and you will find that peace that passes all understanding this silly season, and truly hear those words from God: “This is the child with whom I am well pleased.”

* Randle Bond is Assistant Minister at RAFT.