I Just Wish that It Was Easier

Every time I hear that phrase “merry Christmas,” it reminds me of a scene from one of my favorite movies to watch this time of year: the 2005 remake of C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” Best “Merry Christmas” scene ever in that movie (in my opinion).

Peter, Susan, and Lucy have gone through the wardrobe, are in Narnia, and find themselves running from the White Witch. Just as she’s about to overtake them, they hide under this snowy bough. And you can hear the crunching of footsteps in the snow above them. But brave little Lucy decides she’s going to check it out, and...

Well, it’s probably better that you just watch for yourself. Take a look at this:

SHOW FATHER CHRISTMAS SCENE - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY-fhfuDEUA

Series Intro: I Just Wish That...

So, merry Christmas to you.

And, like Father Christmas, we thought that as we launch into the holiday season, we’d like to give you some tools to navigate the ups and downs that come our way at this time of year. We’re starting a series called...

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I Just Wish That...

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Illustration: Your Wish List

Take a walk down memory lane with me. Think back—all the way back—to when you were a kid at this time of year.

Maybe… probably… you had a Christmas “wish list.”

(We should qualify for the Gen Z’ers: by “wish list,” we’re not talking about Amazon. We’re talking about an actual list that we wrote down, populated by things that we saw on a Saturday morning commercial or in some catalogue, probably.)

So think back:

What was on your Christmas wish list as a kid?

It’s such a generational question, isn’t it? You could probably guess someone’s age by hearing what was on their Christmas wish list as a kid.

In fact: let’s test that theory. See if you can tell my age by what was on my list as a kid:

SHOW POWER WHEELS PICTURE

There were several years of my childhood where this bad boy was on the top of my list.

Now: just in case you don’t know what you’re looking at there, that, my friends, is what is known as a “Power Wheels” Big Foot 4x4 Monster Truck ride-on toy.

And what was so cool about it was that it was powered electrically. You didn’t have to pedal it like a peasant… you just turned it on and pushed down the “gas” pedal.

And I remember wanting it so badly. But, of course, my parents didn’t love me enough. And I had to just “pretend I wasn’t disappointed” with all of the other awesome gifts I got. Every Christmas.

You wanna know where I got this picture, by the way? It’s actually from an eBay listing. True story: you can buy that bad boy for a cool $500—which I think probably was the same price new back in 1986, too, the year that it was made. Adjust that for inflation.

Series Revisited: I Just Wish That...

But I bet you had a gift like that—something you really, really wanted… but probably weren’t going to get. Right?

Fast forward to 2023 and the current adult version of you:

You and I… we still have a list. It’s not written out. But it’s there.

Christmas still is a time where our wishes, our hopes, our longings... still kinda rise to the surface. Maybe not on a literal wish list, but a wish list nonetheless.

And there’s good reason for that. It has everything to do with what Christmas actually is and how it actually began in the first place.

Unlike a lot of other holidays, and despite all the commercialism, Christmas isn’t some sort of human-made, Hallmark-invented holiday.

Christmas is a thing because the God of the universe, our Creator, longed to be with us, and longed for us to be with him—so he sent his Son, Jesus, at Christmas, to be our Christ—our promised Messiah, sent to save us from our sin that separated us from him.

So I think our longings for peace, family, simplicity, joy… all of these Christmastime sentiments—they find their origin | and their fulfillment | in God With Us—Jesus, the baby born in the manger.

And yet, just like that way-too-expensive toy on our childhood wish list, all of these things our heart wishes for at Christmastime… sometimes faceplant on the floor of real life, in the real world—which, among other things, is a world made up of brokenness and broken people.

As much as we’d like Christmas to be a time where we can kinda drown out all the bad stuff or somehow rewrite our story into a Hallmark movie ending, it’s often exactly the opposite:

Christmas can be a time where we’re reminded just how far the life we’re living is from the life we wish for.

But, my friends:

It’s that gap (that’s often highlighted at Christmastime)—it’s that gap where Jesus wants to meet us.

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At Christmastime, Jesus wants to meet us in the gap between what we just wish and what just is.

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So that’s the idea behind the series. Here’s where we’ll be going:

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I Just Wish That...

Week 1: It Was Easier (Family)

Week 2: They Were Still Here (Grief)

Week 3: I Had More (Resources: Our Time & Money)

Week 4: I Could Feel Normal (Mental Health)

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(All from the Christmas story, btw.)

I Just Wish That It Was Easier: Intro

So let’s jump into it this weekend. I just wish that “it was easier.” Let’s talk about our families.

It’s the Sunday after Thanksgiving—so we could call this our “Post-Thanksgiving Show” or our “Pre-Christmas Show”—but either way, it’s the perfect weekend to talk about our families… because either you just spent a day or two together, or you’re about to here in a few short weeks.

Now: I want to go on record saying that I have the perfect family. All of them, including me, are perfectly wonderful people and an absolute joy to be around. Again, all of them. Including me.

Me especially.

Just a big gift being in my presence.

Don’t have to ask them. Just take my word for it.

Kidding aside: my family/family extended is great. They really are. No family is perfect, including ours, of course… but we’re pretty fortunate.

All of us follow Jesus.

There aren’t weird political or social arguments.

We don’t drink too much.

Our kids get along with each other.

And so while we’ve certainly got our histories and dynamics and quirks and whatever, we’ve got it pretty good. We don’t dread being around each other (I don’t think. And if anyone does, they can keep their opinion to themselves, amirite?)

And maybe your family story is more like mine. Not perfect, but generally… pretty good.

But if that’s you, then count yourselves lucky. Because you and me: we’re in the minority.

The vast minority, I think.

Many (if not most) of us have some pretty difficult dynamics around the family Thanksgiving or Christmas table.

Or we’ve got some difficult dynamics, and because of those, we’ve got some people missing from the table—because they haven’t come back since ________ happened.

And we kinda brace for dealing with that at this time of year. If we still wrote a wish list out, on the top of that list would be:

I just wish it was easier. I just wish it was easier.

Exegesis: Matthew 1:18-20

And I think that was probably on the top of Mary and Joseph’s list as well.

Turn with me to Matthew 1:18-20.

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Matthew 1:18-20

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(Explain how to find Matthew. Important to be in the Bible—especially at this time of year!)

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Matthew 1:18–20 “This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

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This is the story of Jesus’ birth, t-minus 9 months. His mom, Mary, is engaged to a young man, Joseph.

Joseph and Mary both were God-followers. And so they were doing it right: waiting for their marriage before they consummated.

But Mary is found to be pregnant.

Kinda scandalous. I’m sure it happened then like it happens now. But it happened then in the context of a community who defined purity according to how God defined it: in the context of marriage. So… Mary’s pregnant. They’re not married. Scandalous. And not in a good way.

Of course, everyone would be looking at Joseph.

But it gets more salacious:

It’s not his.

So now, we’re not just at the scandalous level. We’re at shameful.

You’re pregnant, Mary? And it’s not even your future husband’s kid?

Now, we know the story. We know the how and the why. It was God’s Spirit, so that Jesus was begotten not made—fancy language for the eternal Son not being created, but becoming a human nonetheless.

But we know that after centuries of theological reflection and development. The doctrine of the virgin birth is just that to us… a doctrine.

But the story is about two real people starting a life together, now starting a family together, totally unplanned, in a community that I’m sure met their explanation not only with doubt but outright rejection.

And we know that Joseph doesn’t want to subject her to public disgrace. But we shouldn’t misread the story here:

They still absolutely experienced that disgrace.

There’s no way that anyone believed them.

Mary was a promiscuous pregnant teen.

Joseph was a fool.

And Jesus was illegitimate.

I’m sure it was simple as that in the minds of most. Jesus was a product of a broken family. And I’m sure he and his folks have memories of being treated as such. Not easy.

In fact, you could even say that Jesus came from a long line of messy, broken families.

Go back a chapter to the beginning of Matthew, chapter 1.

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Matthew 1:3, 5, & 6

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Chapter 1 gives Jesus’ genealogy on his dad’s side. But the author of Matthew is careful to include the marriages/spouses of (4) of those generations. He lists “the father of _______, who was the father of ________, who was the father of ________,” but then every once in awhile, he talks about who that guy was married to.

Take a look at verses, 3, 5, and 6 with me:

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Matthew 1:3 “Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar...”

Matthew 1:5 “Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth…”

Matthew 1:6 “and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife…”

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I know we’ve got several campuses who have kids in the room with them right now, so I’m gonna say this as generally and safely as possible:

Tamar and Judah had Perez and Zerah together. But Tamar was actually Judah’s widowed daughter-in-law who disguised herself as a lady of the night in order to force Judah to preserve her family line.

Rahab was a “madam.” She betrayed her own country in order to hide Israelite spies who sacked her city.

Ruth was a widowed Moabite foreigner who stayed with her Jewish mother-in-law, Naomi (who was from Bethlehem—and the reason that Jesus’ parents had to travel back there during Mary’s pregnancy).

And Uriah’s wife—that’s Bathsheba. King David had a secret affair with her and tried to cover up the conspiracy to kill her husband. They lost their first child together. And then they had Solomon. But David’s firstborn (by another woman) tried to kill him and his brothers.

So that’s Jesus’ family tree. Not easy.

And, of course, we get more tough family stuff in the early days and years of Jesus’ family:

They have to go back to their ancestral home to register for a census. But none of their family either lives there anymore or has any room for them (or, maybe the rest of their family wasn’t interested in housing the pregnant unmarried couple). So they have the Son of God in feeding trough.

Herod, the king in that region, learns of his birth and learns of the divine, prophetic story circulating about it—and goes on a murderous rampage. Mary and Joseph flee. Every other family in Bethlehem with little toddler boys is impacted. Their family is a pariah.

And even when Jesus grows up, his family is still problematic:

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Mark 3:20–21 “Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”

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Not. Easy.

Hey:

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Family, more often than not, is not easy.

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These beautiful, peaceful, dark navy night sky Christmas scenes with the bright, white shining star above and the perfectly symmetrical stable below...

The instagram-worthy holiday table and place settings with bright, smiling faces in each chair...

Don’t get me wrong: the holidays can bring some of those moments with them, and boy, do we sure chase them, but:

Family, more often than not, does not look like that. Family is not easy.

Lord knows.

Literally, the Lord knows. Jesus knows. Wasn’t for him, either.

So...

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Family, more often than not, is not easy.

So:

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Family, more often than not, is not easy.

So:

Let’s stop chasing “easy.”

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I get it. We all just wish it was easier.

If your dad would just… or your daughter wouldn’t… or they married that… or I’m sure they’re gonna bring up that one time that...

Yeah. You’re right. It would be a lot easier if.

But—and you probably already know this:

Your dad won’t. Your daughter will. They did marry you know who. And they are gonna bring that thing up.

All of that will probably happen.

And we can choose to chase “easy,” and just get disappointed when it’s not, or...

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Family, more often than not, is not easy.

So:

Let’s stop chasing “easy.”

And let’s start chasing Jesus—especially in the tough stuff of family.

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We read the story in Matthew 1 of how Jesus was conceived and how an angel explained it to Joseph. But after he does, the author of Matthew goes on to say this:

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Matthew 1:22–23 “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).”

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Jesus didn’t come to make it easier.

He came to be with us in the tough stuff.

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With us.

With us in the tough stuff. The real stuff.

The complex stuff. The messy stuff.

The broken stuff. The stuck stuff. The “never-gonna-change” stuff.

He came to be with us in the resentful stuff. The dark stuff.

The “ship has sailed” stuff. The “can’t take it back” stuff.

God in the flesh, really with us, in the real stuff of our real families.

Reflection Set-up

So here’s what we’re gonna do across all of our campuses:

We’re going to create some space for you to do some reflection on how Jesus might need to meet you in this gap between what you wish were the case and what actually is the case, especially when it comes to our families. Even in the tough stuff.

So we’re going to create some space for you to do that—and we’re gonna give you a tool to help you do it.

Your weekend host will lead you through it in just a second. But let me encourage you… take advantage… don’t check out...