Despite having no relationship at all with the real meaning of Christmas, the song titled All I Want for Christmas is You performed by Mariah Carey seemed to be one of the most iconic representation of Christmas. Chances are, in the recent years, you have been hearing this same song every December. The song's lyric talks about not wanting present under the trees for Christmas, but instead wants you, which refers to someone the writer/singer love. Of course this meaning from the lyrics has nothing to do with the original meaning of Christmas. But what if we forcefully inject the you mentioned in the song with the Person of Christ Jesus? Suddenly the meaning of the song becomes very serious.
How much would it take to say, "All I want for Christmas is You, Jesus Christ"? This question gave me deep thought in this year's Christmas.
This Christmas is personally for me a very dry Christmas. The joyful season, people having fancy foods to eat, dress up nicely, laughing together, all these felt so distant from my soul. Somehow my soul are not roused into excitement, on the contrary, those phenomena took me further away from joy. It feels as if there is an invisible walls between me and this joy.
But before we proceed, I think it is best to remind ourselves why are we supposed to be joyful in Christmas. In Christmas we are supposed to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. But as Rev. Agus Marjanto mentioned in his sermon here, if the birth is merely a human baby's birth, it is no different than other babies. But the one that was born was Jesus which is the Son of God who is God Himself. More than just a birth of a human, it is an incarnation of the infinite God into a limited human. Why did He had to incarnate into the earth? Because to save us human from sin, a blameless substitute must die in our stead and because for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). And THAT is the reason we should be joyful in Christmas!
The real question today is, do we rejoice in this Christmas because of THAT specific reason? Not because it's holiday, not because there are beautiful displays of Christmas trees and ornaments, nor because we can meet up with friends and fellow believer. Of course we might say that those things ought to be enjoyed as well as a ripple from the original joy from the real meaning of Christmas. But if we may take a while to ponder and be honest to ourselves, those ripples eventually became a cloud to the original joy from Christmas.
This is precisely why I felt this Christmas is so distant from me. I felt that whichever fleeting happiness around me because of the 'season' are empty. It cannot satisfy the hollow within my heart. I know that THE one thing that may fill it is the person of Christ who was born on this earth. But that joy is given not up to me, it is solely up for His sovereign will to move the heart and soul. All I can do in this time are hope and pray, that He may present that joy in place of the longing.
Therefore, let the statement "all I want for Christmas is You" be a real prayer for us. Although we in our sinful nature will find it impossible to even remotely want for Christ, but the Holy Spirit shall give us the strength for us to want Christ, moreover to want only Him in this Christmas and in our whole life.
God bless us all and merry Christmas to everyone.
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