One depressing occurrence I observed year after year when I was growing up in the village was the loneliness and sadness one middle-aged woman portrayed during Christmas.
The woman, Maame Baabo, had two sons who travelled out of the country one Christmas season to look for greener pastures but who never returned.
Mournful season
While some said Maame Baabo’s sons travelled to Nigeria, others believed they went to Libya. But how did this matter to the poor woman? What she knew was that her two sons left home and did not return. And they left during the Christmas season.
Therefore, every Christmas season, while every family in the small village was celebrating the Yuletide in joy, Maame Baabo spent the season in mourning.
She even composed a song which she sang continuously, “Afe aso ama m’akae m’asem bi”—meaning, “The year has ended and reminded me of my plight.”
I used to watch Maame Baabo sit quietly at her corner of the compound house where we lived, and she broke my heart with her sorrowful posture, painful reality, and many tears.
Some years later, when I left the village for further studies and returned to pay the village folks a visit, Maame Baabo was still lamenting the loss of her sons!
I remember sharing with her a few words of encouragement, citing the significance of Christmas as a basis for “joy in the world,” but, till this day, I wonder if what I said made sense to her or not.
Every Christmas season, while many individuals and families commemorate the birth of Christ with celebration, there are some who recall the moment with sadness and pain due to some unpleasant happenings in their lives.
That is why Christmas is a shared occasion. Just as God is with us and gives us hope, so must we share our resources with others in order to bring some sunshine into their lives.
Hint of Christmas
The hint of Christmas occurred centuries ago when one king found himself in deep trouble.
His name was Ahaz, the king of the southern kingdom of Judah. Two nations—Israel and Aram—had formed an alliance with the sole purpose of overrunning Judah to destroy it.
In such a grim situation, “the heart of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind” (Isaiah 7:2). Shaken hearts, grief-stricken moods, painful remembrance, and constant misery describe human experience in a fallen world.
It was at such a time that God told King Ahaz to ask him for a sign—a sign that the coalition of the enemy kings could not defeat them, no matter how shaken they were.
But Ahaz refused to ask God for a sign, fearing that he might put God to the test. So God Himself decided to give the king a sign: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).
Great promise
This sign from above that God gave to the king and his people was one of the greatest promises of the Old Testament that pointed directly to Christ.
The Gospel writer Matthew quotes this pivotal verse as an absolute fulfilment of this promise, adding, “Immanuel means God is with us” (Matthew 1:23).
In any gloomy situation we find ourselves, remembering that God is with us gives us the confidence to deal with that situation.
Hence, David said in confidence, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for you are with me” (Psalm 23:4).
While some theologians say the promise of a virgin birth was specifically made to King Ahaz and a nation in trouble, they nevertheless agree that God used the promise to deal with the larger trouble facing humanity; namely, sin and how to deal with it.
This is because Immanuel, God with us, was also to be named Jesus, because he would save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).
So Christmas is a sin-cleansing and soul-saving mission that God himself undertook by entering into the human race to be with us.
Hope for all
I like what one Baptist pastor wrote about this: “Christmas tells us that God has come to our house, and not just for the holiday, but forever.
The story of Christmas meets us in our loneliness and tells us that God sees us and understands what we feel.”
Consequently, people like Maame Baabo and others in one form of distress or another can find hope in Christ. And this hope, which is the anchor for the soul, can never disappoint us (Romans 5:5).
No matter what sad situation Christmas and the end of the year remind us of, we should remember that God is with us, and he saves us from our sins in order to spend eternity with us.
The writer is a publisher, author, writer-trainer and CEO of Step Publishers.
E-mail: lawrence.darmani@gmail.com
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh
