Over a century ago, British poet Christina Rossetti wrote the Christmas carol “In the Bleak Midwinter.” While she undoubtedly understood that Bethlehem wasn’t blanketed with snow when Jesus was born, she knew that He came when hope felt lost. The bleak and hopeless atmosphere of the darkest days of winter was a fitting analogy.
“Bleak” still feels like an accurate description of our conditions. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska recently summarized 2021: “It has been a horrible year, hasn’t it?”
There are plenty of reasons to feel discouraged. A lingering pandemic. Division and disunity. Injustice and unkindness. Personally, stories of misalignment between leaders’ words and actions weighed heavily on my heart, as we witnessed egregious examples of those who claimed to follow Christ but used power and position to subjugate, not serve.
In this current “bleak midwinter,” many are experiencing deep disappointment, and some have concluded that the wintry conditions are reason to question or even abandon their faith. I sympathize with these sentiments. Our conditions are bleak, and if the “Christian” response is what we’ve seen played out in the press, then caring, compassionate people have every reason to turn away.
But our faith was never intended to be built on the example of Christian leaders or the tranquility of our broader environment. In the bleak midwinter, the Good News is still very good news, and it is precisely what the world needs.
This Christmas my heart needs to remember and reaffirm the world-changing gift of a Savior. The One who brings light to our bleakest midwinter. The One we celebrate. May we place our hope not in our conditions or our earthly leaders but in the humble arrival of our Savior and the Kingdom He ushers in. Our faith rests in this divine invasion, which still gives our weary world reason to rejoice. May this Christmas cause us to once again look to Jesus with wonder and delight.
“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” Luke 2:11
