Many people in grief and loss question the existence of
God. If God exists, how could and why did the loved
one die or the bad thing happen? How can
God allow bad things to happen to me?
This seems to be likely especially in the stage of anger.
The person with grief can look at the world through the dark glasses of
anger. Anger does not let people enjoy
times and things, but for some strange reason many of us hang on to it.
Anger as an emotion affects a person physically. There can be muscle tension, headaches and
nausea. Anger can be monopolizing and
affect the way things taste and sound.
It has a way of compounding from the mildest irritation and annoyance up
to rage when more thought or time is invested in it.
With all this anger comes negative emotional thinking. It is all about the feeling and not the
logic. It can be a self-righteous anger
where the sense of victim-hood brings a sense of entitlement. It takes away our
desire to look at things logically or factually, and everything is negative.
The Challenge of the God Component in Christmas
This brings us to Christmas.
It is a holiday that commemorates emotion in some form or another. It is supposed to be a “Merry
Christmas.” We are supposed to “make
merry” or do things that make us feel happy.
It is supposed to be the happiest time of the year. Yeah right.
In the pluralistic, secular cultures of the western world,
there have been a number of alternative traditions that get away from the
religious origin of Christmas and the focus has been on Food, Gifts, Santa
Claus, and the feeling we are supposed to have.
As I have written in the past in this blog, nostalgia is part of this
tradition of trying to get good feelings by selectively remembering or
recreating the past.
When you get down to it, despite all the wrapping, bows,
ribbons, and sugar coating, the heart of Christmas is God’s revelation of
Himself to humanity. For the angry
person whose longstanding grief has led to atheism, emptiness can get kicked up
a few notches or levels.
I have found in my discussion with a number of atheists
there is an angry, emotional core for their denial of the existence of
God. The angry person who became an
atheist has likely asked: If God exists, why did He allow bad things to
happen? As earlier discussed anger is
an emotional way of thinking. Even with
the rational arguments of philosophy and theology, every school of thought
starts with an emotional core or epistemology.
No matter how logically a devoutly religious person may try to reason
with an atheist, the conversation tends to stop at the atheist’s emotional reaction.
Such discussions are going to stop because faith starts when the facts go no
further.
In the end, you can neither disprove nor prove the existence
of God. The believer is not going to
prove it to the atheist. The atheist is not going to disprove it to the
believer.
However, if you happen to be an atheist or agnostic and you
are still reading this, I supposed your skepticism has kicked into high gear.
Many of us put an “if” or a “why” in front of God when our
expectations are not met or when we get hurt.
Many of us get angry and frustrated at God in our grief. Some people decide to deny that God exists
because the “if’s” and the “why’s” does not get answered to our satisfaction.
I will say that the concept of Christmas calls you to
consider faith and belief and your “if’s” and “why’s.” You are either going to have them or you are
not. But there is one question: What
would lead you to consider belief again?
If God were to be revealed to you that you believed, how would it
happen?
The Bizarre Sub-Plot of Joseph
Today, I am struck by the side story of Joseph—the guy who was
Jesus’ earthly father. Relatively little
is actually said about him, but the limited information suggests he was a guy
who definitely saw God. You can read
this in the New Testament of the Bible in the book of Matthew, chapters 1-2, (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+1-+2&version=NIV)
and the book of Luke 2
Joseph saw God in some of the most convoluted ways and he
demonstrated his belief by his actions.
First, the girl he was supposed to marry turns up pregnant. He was a religious and righteous man and he
was going to do the right thing in breaking off the engagement quietly. I think that he was one of those who had the
right to ask . . . scream at the top of his lungs:
“How could this happen to me?”
He could have made a scene and show
all of the self-righteous rage in the world and watched her get stoned in the
streets. But God sends him an angel in a
dream, telling him to marry the girl, which he does.
After he gets to the place where they have to go to get
counted in some mandatory Roman Empire census,
the wife has the kid in a barn in the middle of the night and some strange people come barging in almost immediately with a story that they saw a bunch of angels light up the dark sky announcing the baby’s
birth and singing glory to God. (Probably about) two years later some happy, rich strangers come in with
some extravagant gifts wanting to worship the child. When they leave he immediately gets a dream
telling him to flee because the local tyrant in power was coming to kill the
baby.
No one can get into Joseph’s mind from just reading the story,
but part of me just can only wonder about his seeing and meeting God through
these weird and dysfunctional-appearing ways at what might have been the most
trying times of his life. God did not appear
to him in church or in happy moments when he was ready to meet God. God appeared to him as God appeared to
him when God appeared to him.
This is a story where it seems that Joseph goes through an
emotional roller coaster. God met Joseph
when he was in pain. God met him in the
middle of dark nights. God met him
through bizarre circumstances. Christmas
reveals a God who does not act as “if” we think God should.
God sometimes gives the “why” but it is not necessarily in
words. It would seem that Joseph had an
“a-ha” moment after the shepherds came barging into the stable that indeed God
was involved. He would have confirmation of the "a-ha" several days later in the temple when a strange, old man and a strange, old woman
came up and blessed the child and talked about what the child would do (later
in the Luke chapter).
Back to the 21st Century
You and I have a choice whether to buy the story of
Christmas. Faith is a choice that is not
a logical matter. It can be a difficult
choice when our brains are full of anger and pain over the loss and grief of
something that we had cherished. For
some reason (whether divine or economic exploitation), the story of Christmas
persists and it reveals God no matter how Santa, Christmas trees, and gifts try
to crowd Him out.
I hope this meaningfully challenged you and offered you some
hope if not something to think about.
Feel free to pass it on by reposting it.
Also free to look at the 90 other posts on this blog for thoughts on
other subjects.
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