“I’ll have a blue Christmas without you,” Elvis Presley famously sang, giving voice to the sadness of spending Christmas alone.  Christmas with its emphasis on family and children, holiday parties and neighborhood festivities can be a difficult time to spend alone, especially if you don’t have a family, or family nearby, or mourning a recent loss.   Sometimes people who are lonely or mourning wonder if there is place they can go where they won’t have to pretend to be happy or be bludgeoned with Christmas cheer.  Maybe you’ve heard about churches which have responded to this need by offering services called Blue Christmas.  Blue Christmas services are intended for people who have a hard time with the gaiety and frivolity of Christmas.  When I first heard about Blue Christmas services, I have to admit, I reacted negatively.  I thought, Christmas is one of the great feasts of the Church.  It is a time to celebrate the joy of Jesus’ birth and the promise of redemption and peace on earth.  Why, I wondered, would people want a separate service so that could sit around and mope?  To be honest, I’m still not sure that Blue Christmas services are a good idea.  But I am sure that the fact that Blue Christmas services exists points to a great failure of the Church.

A true Christmas celebration has a solemn element along with the joy and festivity.  This fall I began singing in an early music ensemble, and we have spent the last three months preparing music for our Christmas concerts.  After going over these songs, again, and again, and again, the words finally began to sink in.  When our ancestors in the faith celebrated the Savior’s birth, they dealt with some pretty heavy, some pretty sad, some pretty non-Christmasy stuff.  They celebrated Adam and Eve’s first sin, calling it the Felix Culpa, the Happy Fault, because it created the necessity for a Savoir.  They sang about the vulnerability of the Virgin Mary, likening the sin of the world to a wolf prowling around her door.  They sang about the innocent children that Herod the King slaughtered in his attempt to kill the Christ Child.  They sang about the vulnerability and fragility of life and always remembered that this little baby was born to die.  These ancient carols mix solemnity and joy.

I should be clear that I am in no way opposed to the lighter side of Christmas.  I have countless happy childhood memories of decorating Christmas trees.  Helping, mostly by licking the bowl, my mother and grandmother bake Christmas cookies.  I remember being unable to sleep and laying in bed with my brother listening for the sound of Santa’s sled on the roof.  In the morning, my siblings and I would line up at the top of the stairs while my dad plugged in the Christmas tree and adjusted his camera – it took forever – and then running down to find to empty our stockings.  I have treasured memories of sledding, and hot coca and caroling, and serving as an acolyte at Midnight Mass.  Our ancestors in the faith knew how to have a good time at Christmas, too.  Mixed in with all those serious Christmas carols are drinking songs in which the revelers go from house to house toasting the horses and cows and the pretty serving girls.  But just as there needs to be a bit of frivolity in every solemn occasion, there needs to be a bit of solemnity in the midst of frivolity.

The Cappedocian Fathers were a group of theologians who lived n the late 4rd century in what is now Turkey.  They particularly studied and discussed why it was necessary for Jesus to be both man and God.  One of their number, Gregory Nazianzus wrote, “That which has not been assumed has not been healed.”  And what he meant by that is simply this: That if Jesus was going to be a true Savior then he had to be a truly human being and truly share our life.  And that meant enduring all those things that we human beings endure; all those things we sing about in the ancient Christmas carols:  Running from murderous tyrants, living in a frail body, surrounded by sin and death.  Speaking of Jesus, St. Paul writes in the Letter to the Hebrews, “Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things … Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect … Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.”

If you are starting a new job, or working hard, or searching for a job you need to know Jesus the working man who learned his trade from this father, a hardworking carpenter.  If you’re kids are giving you fits or if they feel ignored and excluded, you need to the know Jesus who blessed the children and said, “Let the little children come to me for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.”  If your marriage is rocky or if it has its ups and downs, you need to know Jesus who blessed marriage by his first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee and who reminded us that what God has joined together let no one put asunder.  And if you have failed and fallen short, and everyone has, then you need to know Jesus who said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.  If your friends or your family have let you down or stabbed you in the back, you need to know Jesus who was betrayed by one of his inner circle.  If you are sick then you need to know Jesus the healer about whom the people said, “He has done everything well; eh even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”  If you are caring for elderly parents then you need to know Jesus who before he died left his mother in the care of his best friend.  And if you are dying, then you need to know Jesus who said, “I am resurrection and I am life.”

Every Christmas is Blue Christmas, because every Christmas we come to this day carrying, to a greater or lesser extent, a burden of anxiety and sorrow.  We come to celebrate the birth of One who has walked that way before us and walks it now with us, the One who said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Jesus the Redeemer was born to share our humanity so that we could share his divinity.  Because he has shared our lives, he transforms our lives, making us heirs and citizens of the kingdom of heaven, and that is the best reason I know for celebrating with gaiety, frivolity, and joyful abandon.  Amen.