Dear Baby Jesus

What they did really sucked.  It was a shitty thing to do.  It hurt so deep that you don’t think you will ever recover from the breathtaking pain of it all.  Even now, when you remember it , you have to stop whatever you are doing for just a second and catch your breath.

The worst part is that they want to pretend like nothing happened at all.  They want to move on and just get back to normal as soon as possible.  They want you to pretend with them that everything is fine and your heart was never broken.  They expect you to just play along.  They want forgiveness without having to acknowledge their crime.

They want a free pass.

Isn’t that what Jesus tells us to do?  To hand out forgiveness like candy?  Seventy times seven. Like we have an endless supply and can dispense it with glee like Oprah gives away new cars? “You’re forgiven! You’re forgiven! You’re forgiven!”

If there is anything I know about Christmas it is this- the message of Christmas is that forgiveness isn’t cheep and reconciliation isn’t easy.

Forgiveness is forged out of the pain and mess of a baby birthed on a dark, cold night, surrounded by filth and muck.  Forgiveness sent a young couple down a path of uncertainty and fear into a strange land as refugees without a home.  The narrative of forgiveness begins with the slaughter of innocent baby boys whose only crime was being born at the same time as God’s own son.  The narrative of forgiveness ends with that son’s agony and death, too.

So, you see? Forgiveness is more than a free pass.   Grace is costly.  When Jesus prayed, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sinned against us,”  I think he knew what that prayer would  eventually cost him, what it had already cost him.  He knew the price of forgiveness was great, but he prayed it anyway.

Maybe you will never get the apology you need.  Maybe they will never acknowledge what they have done.  But God sees your hurt. God knows how much you want to forgive.  God knows the cost of reconciliation and that is exactly why the whole messy Christmas story began in the first place.

The truth is, like Mary and Joseph, we are refugees, too, right now.  We’ve been a little lost and wandering ourselves lately.  We want to forgive, but we don’t know how.  Surely God knows our sorrow.  Surely God see our tears.  Surely God will walk with us on our own Bethlehem journey from darkness into light.

So, in the Spirit of Christmas, this is my prayer for you and for me:

Dear Emmanuel,  
       God With Us, 
              Beautiful six-pound tiny baby Jesus with a perfect newborn cry-
Be here with us in our messy hurting hearts.
Bring us out of the muck and mire.
Bring us home to that place of healing.
Where forgiveness does flow freely.
Where grace abounds.  
Where love is given and then given again.  
Help us to say, “Just as I am forgiven, so are you.”

You are forgiven. You are forgiven. You are forgiven.