Christmas Presence

We just finished watching Home Alone, a Christmas tradition.

If you haven’t seen it in a while, please allow me to refresh your memory.

Kevin McCallister, played by Macaulay Culkin, is a pint-sized troublemaker, the youngest of five children in a house teeming with relatives all preparing to leave the country in the morning and spend Christmas with relatives overseas. After smarting off to his parents and causing a cringe-worthy scene that lands him in the creepy attic (where he will have to sleep with his bed-wetting cousin), Kevin wishes that his family would disappear. The next morning, they mistakenly head for the airport without him and he is, well, home alone. He made his family disappear.

The rest of the movie has two distinct threads: 1) Kevin overcoming his fears of being alone and dealing with an imminent threat on his house (burglars intent on robbing it) and 2) Kevin and his neighbor each realizing that there’s something important about “with-ness,” especially when it comes to family.

It is this latter thread that I find deeply woven into my own experience with Christmas. After 15 awesome Christmases (as far as I could tell), filled with love, family, and cheer, I had one stinker of a Christmas. My 16^th Christmas was celebrated only a week after my father died. I watched him breathe his last, in our house. Right by where we used to put the Christmas tree. Sigh.

As I’ve been involved in ministry for the last ten or so years, I’ve learned that Christmas can be a really difficult time for people. They’re stressed, overworked, seeing people who make them uncomfortable, dealing with loss (because Christmas isn’t ever really the same when there’s an empty seat at the table). It’s the season when we throw about words like Joy and Blessing and Peace, but sometimes feel so far from experiencing those realities.

I think it’s in those moments that the power of the Incarnation—God’s presence with us—shines in. As one translation puts it, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14, MSG).

My prayer for each of us this Christmas is that we, like Kevin McCallister, would feel a deep need for presence—the presence of God and the presence of other people—and find that need satisfied. May we each have a moment this holiday to unpack the richness of the promise of His presence.