Let The Weary Women Rejoice

It has been a year of chaos and uncertainty. 2020 has been a monumental twelve months that will go down in history as one of the most unpredictable and tumultuous years of all time. If you're like me, all the changes have left you feeling weary. Maybe the irregularity of life and the sudden break in routines have you stressed and wondering if things will ever go back to normal again. It could be the financial strain and health concerns that have you completely worn out. Maybe the isolation sank itself into your body and you wandered from God as a result. Maybe this year wounded you unlike any other year. Maybe you lost a loved one, lost a job, or lost your marriage. It could be many things. Weariness has many different colors.

How can weary people rejoice? How can a working mother, a homeschooling mother, a single mother, a hopeful mother, a new mother, or a veteran mother rejoice when the bills are piling up, when the house is falling apart, and when their sanity is hanging on by a mere thread? To find the answer, we simply have to look at Bethlehem.

Luke 2:8-11
Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

The world had been waiting; waiting for hope, waiting for joy. The world was weary. For over four thousand years, mankind had seen all kinds of wickedness. Since the fall in Eden, humanity had endured its share of murder, adultery, captivity, wars, famines, and plagues. Families had been torn apart by jealousy, incest, and murder; nations and kingdoms had rivaled over thrones and over land; people bent on doing things their way had been enslaved and hurt. Then, to make things worse, God went silent for four hundred years. Weariness echoed in every prayer to heaven from every crushed heart.

Yet the world kept spinning, as it does today. People kept going to work, raising their families, and making sacrifices at the temple, hoping that one day a glorious morn would break and the silence would be forever broken.

And because God is faithful, that day finally came.

The Light of heaven came down to a broken world that was covered by the blackness of evil. The Image of the Invisible God was given, not to wealthy and affluent parents, but to a humble and faithful woman and man. It was to the sin-sick, sin-scarred, and sin-separated that Emmanuel came. The angels, wrapped in the glory of God, proclaimed the news of the greatest joy ever; a joy that was for all people, from the worst of the rebels to the weariest of rejects. There was now cause for rejoicing because God had been made low and had come down to seek, to save, and breathe life into dead souls.

If you are weary this Christmas, remember the holy night in Bethlehem. Remember the angels whose song of rejoicing pierced the four hundred year old silence. Remember the manger which held the Healer for the mangled and marred. You may be weary, friend. But as we learn through the Nativity story, a weary world can still rejoice because Emmanuel is here. He has come.

Lamentations 3:21
This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope...