Is All Well?

IS ALL WELL?

One of my favorite modern-day Christmas songs is “All Is Well,” sung by Carrie Underwood and Michael W. Smith.  As I listened this morning, I thought, “Lord, all is NOT well in our world today; how can we sing “Alleluia, all is well?” When Christmas season is usually the time of joy, peace, and love, this year has been one of so much suffering, death, loneliness and grief, and Christmas just feels weird.  Joy has been sapped right out of us and peace has to be found with concerted effort.  A heaviness hovers over us all and our struggles seem magnified as we try to celebrate.

But wait… what is the Christmas celebration all about anyway? Go with me in your mind and visit the nativity. Nativity scenes are everywhere; every Christian home usually has one (I have a friend who has a collection of 100’s) either sitting on a table, or a picture of one. This scene is the universal symbol of the birth of the Christ child. Ok, let’s peek in and see who is there. Mary, having been on a long journey and given birth to her baby in a stable with no family around her, is admiring her baby boy. Joseph is standing nearby ready to help care for this little family, but he is tired and confused. He is saddened by the fact that he could not find a room for them and had to resort to a dirty stable – a place where animals are kept. His mind is weary because he has spent months being ridiculed and rejected – some of his townsfolk were ready to stone him and Mary because they could not believe their stories of angel visits and a virgin conception. Now here they were, in a strange land, in a stable, with a newborns baby. The baby that is the Messiah, King of Kings, Savior of the World. Look a little further into this cave/stable and you will see shepherds there. A King is born, and angels told shepherds first. What? Low-class, dirty shepherds. They had heard all their lives that a Messiah was to be born, and were astonished on their way to Bethlehem that they would be able to see the baby that would change the whole world.

Nothing I have described in this stable scene was perfect. Nothing made sense. Nothing had been planned this way. There were many struggles up to this point. Who could look at that scene at that moment and say, “Alleluia, all is well?” EXCEPT… look closely at the center of the nativity. There is Emmanuel, Jesus Christ! Even though the circumstances surrounding his birth were not perfect in man’s eyes, the perfection was in the hope of the future of the Messiah who would redeem us! This moment in time would pivot mankind to be rescued once and for all by the sacrifice Jesus would make in a few decades. The HOPE is what you see in the swaddling clothes in the manger.

If we look at our own messy lives, we may feel lonely (like Mary) because we have lost family members this year, or gone through separations of relationships we thought would last forever. We may feel rejection or confusion (as Joseph did) as we face circumstances beyond our control. We may even feel lowly and unworthy (as the shepherds did). We feel we haven’t accomplished much and society looks down on us. We all feel tired and weary.

In the midst of the uncertainty, confusion and exhaustion, a Savior, the GREAT I AM, has come to earth.  That little baby in the center of the nativity wants to be the center of my world! And if I see Him for what He can bring to my life – joy, peace, love, I can truly sing, “Alleluia, all is well!”  If I trust Him that “all things work together for my good,” I can sing, “all is well.” If I focus on the Kingdom of God and not on surrounding struggles, I can sing “Alleluia” and rejoice in knowing ALL IS WELL! 

"Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel...God with us."  Matthew 1:23