Christmas Eve Backpacks

Members of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons see many cases each year among children of a particular injury that is actually quite preventable: backpack injury. The cumulative weight of electronic devices, sports equipment, books, binders, assignments and more mean that children are carrying far too much for far too long. Now, you may or may not know this… but back pain from trying to carry too much is not completely isolated among our youthful population!

Supposedly, even fully grown adults can sprain their back or pull a muscle by lifting something they shouldn’t have. Rather than asking for help we think that we can “manage” on our own. And so we lift and strain until something gives way.

John’s Story

My own brother had a pretty significant injury a few years ago where that exact thing happened. He’s the general manager of a Best Buy… and a pretty successful one at that. His employees work hard for him because they see him working hard right beside them. On Black Friday a few years ago as thousands of customers were streaming through the store, another shipment of door-buster $300 50” TVs arrived. But as he looked around the store for who might help unload them, he saw that every one of his employees was actively engaged with customers and were doing a fantastic job. So, rather than taking someone out of position, he started unloading the pallet himself one after another after another. As he neared the end of shifting TVs, he felt a pop in his arm and when he reached with his hand to grab at his hurting bicep, he grabbed only skin and bone. The muscle itself had managed to release itself from his elbow and the muscle had retracted up and into his shoulder. After multiple surgeries over the last couple of years, it still is not back to what it once was.

Carrying Too Much

How often do we try to carry more than we should?

How often do we feel like we should be able to manage because we don’t want to bother someone else?

How often do we grind forward so that others are not pestered. And certainly, this is not only true for the things that we carry physically… but emotionally and spiritually as well. And carrying so much in whatever form it takes can cause pain… sometimes significant pain… even trauma.

While we don’t talk about trauma a lot in our society unless we’re speaking about something that someone else has gone through… pretty much everyone has experienced incidents which would be considered traumatic.

According to the center for Trauma-Informed Care, trauma is defined as:

“ a pervasive problem. It results from exposure to an incident or series of events that are emotionally disturbing or life-threatening with lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, and/or spiritual well-being.”

This can come from childhood neglect, issues of abuse, poverty or financial insecurity, prolonged separation from loved ones, death of someone who is close to you, a sudden change in life style and the list goes on.

In research studies on how Covid-19 has affected the psyche of individuals throughout society, they have uncovered, unsurprisingly, that life through the pandemic has in fact created trauma for pretty much everyone.

And the thing about trauma, according to psychologists, is that trauma never actually goes away… once we put it in our backpacks, it’s there to stay. Maybe we do some readjusting to figure out how to wear the backpack… we learn ways of how to cope with the trauma… but it’s there for good. And so traumas do also stack upon one another.

So the more traumas we have experienced… the more effect it has on us because it means we have more in our backpacks. And so as we are laden with those heavier backpacks, we will have less energy, shorter fuses, more forgetfulness... and the list goes on.

Isaiah and Covid

We hear the prophet Isaiah as he prepares to announce the coming of the Messiah, he first describes the pain that the people of his day were experiencing. This is the imagery Isaiah uses to describe how the people felt in his day: “The Yoke of their burden, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor…”

We use the terminology backpacks… he uses yokes and bars across the shoulders. In the end, they all speak to a weight that we are carrying.

And it is hard to move forward when we feel burdened down.

When we’re trying to carry along more weight more baggage more stress more pain than we had before… we will be affected. Things that used to seem easy will be harder.

And then we begin to question ourselves and our purpose. We begin to question if it’s all actually worth it anyway because it just seems so hard and we can’t seem to do enough or to be enough or to change things enough and when we do try to do something it can feel like we’re the only ones doing it…

We carry so many burdens in life… and we become so weighed down that it hurts… Our backpacks are too full and we don’t know how to handle it all.. and we find ourselves struggling to move forward. Adn when those things that were easy to do yesterday are hard to do today...we become frustrated with ourselves and discouraged.

Mary and Joseph

I think about Mary and Joseph, and the backpack that they were struggling to carry in those early years of Christ’s life. It wasn’t an ideal situation for them either. Not only did the struggle the night of Christ’s birth to even find a place for Mary to bare this child… but the days, months, and years afterwards would also have been traumatic. While they held the promise of God made flesh in their arms… there was a threat of death to the blessing that they held so dear.

They didn’t have the opportunity to chose colors for their baby’s room. Joseph, hand-man carpenter that he was, likely didn’t get a chance to build a crib for baby Jesus or to put together a chair for Mary to rock in. They lived as refugees on the run with the threat of Herod lurking around every corner.

And as they were running, they didn’t come from families of wealth. They didn’t have an easy vacation trip with all expenses paid. They begged and bartered their way from one day after another, trading on Joseph’s skills where they could as they traveled from one town to the next on their way to Egypt.

All the while wondering, each moment, would Herod finally catch up. Would whatever shelter they nestled in for the night become the last night they had together should they be found? Imagine the trauma they experienced… imagine the fear they had for themselves, for the child, for the future of Israel as the Messiah they held in their arms was so very vulnerable. We look back, and we call it holy. We look back and we see the hand of God so deeply in what was happening in the lives of Mary and Joseph. We look back and we see God’s promise fulfilled in baby Jesus’ life sustained in those years on the run. We look back, and we know how the story ends for all of them. Again, we look back, and we call that night holy. And why?

Because in hindsight, we know God’s promise was fulfilled in those days. While we don’t know the trials that Mary and Joseph faced, we do know that God saw them through it all.

While we don’t know how much they questioned the future we do know that God sustained them.

While we don’t know the doubts they may have experienced as they were on the run, we do know that the Christ child would grow up to tell of God’s faithfulness to the world.

Conclusion

And tonight we gather together around the manger and we worship and we sing and we pray.. there’s a lot that we don’t know. There’s a lot in our backpacks that we are trying to carry along with us that zaps our energy and shortens our tempers and raises the room for doubt and frustration even in ourselves.

Whatever weight that you are carrying in your backpack, remember that God is with you just as God was with Mary and Joseph. Remember that while the way is not easy and the pathway is often strewn with challenges we’d rather not have to experience… that God is faithful and steadfast.

And know also that you don’t have to manage that backpack alone. God gives us a faith family that we are called to live into… that we might both experience and offer the support of Christ through one another.

For a world divided, God offered up the babe in the manger that we might know forgiveness and find ways to love and support each other.

Take your backpack to the manger, add it to the pile. Know the faithfulness of God who takes our the yokes and breaks them… who takes the rods and shatters them… who takes the backpacks and carries them.

There is new life. Have hope. And in fact, don’t even just have hope… follow the manger. Follow the savior.

Amen.