better days

Saying "I don’t care for Christmas" is an understatement. I've developed the quintessential Scrooge
persona to the point that I live in very real fear of being visited by the ghost of Christmas Past late on
Christmas Eve. That's one of my motives for writing this, maybe to shed a little of that cynicism and
remember exactly what it is I have to sing about.

In my journeys through cyberspace researching advent, I stumbled across a song ("Better Days") by the
Goo Goo Dolls that isn't a traditional Christmas song, and it's not by a "Christian" band. These words
resonated so deeply with me though:

"So take these words

And sing out loud
Because everyone is forgiven now
Because tonight's the night the world begins again"

"Tonight's the night the world begins again". I think it stuck with me because that's what advent and
Christmas should mean to me. Not all the vanity and decorations and spending and food and the
relentless banging of Carols against my resistant eardrums. It's about a new dawn, it's about the "better
days" to come. It's about hope. It should be about Jesus.

I feel I have to confess, that's why I don't like Christmas. It makes me feel hopeless. Inadequate. I can't
give those I love everything I wish I could. I come from a broken family, and so the last holiday I spent
with my parents both in the same room was more than twenty years ago. I hate being reminded of all
the hundreds of ways life has let me down, people have let me down, I have let others down. I've let the
holiday become about ME and my self pity. Maybe that's what I've been missing. I am hopeless. I am
inadequate. I am deeply flawed and sinful and sorrowful and dark and so very selfish. On my own I am
doomed to be defined by all these things.

Except...

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,“Glory
to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

Luke 2:13-14

One night, in a cave, probably sometime in spring, a promise was fulfilled. It entered the world quietly.
Not with parades and tree lighting ceremonies and feasts and office parties. Quietly, with only a handful
of witnesses. When I think of that moment when Jesus, in the flesh, breathed his first breath... I can
almost feel the tangible sigh of relief that all of creation must have given. Now, finally, there could be
hope. The world began again. Around two-thousand years ago, this child, this man came, and he said
"You belong to me now, I'll take care of all this. All you have to do is believe me."

He grew up, and he did take care of it. It took His life, but he took care of all that hopelessness, and all
that inadequacy. All that pain. He forgave it. All I have to do is believe Him. I don't have to wait. The
world can begin again, right now.
Sometime around December 1st I harden my heart to the idea that my world, our world, belongs to the
King... and then I heard this simple little song and I grab hold of that.. "because tonight's the night the
world begins again."

I think about all these things, and I wake up a little inside. That's what advent is about. The King is
coming, our savior is coming. It's about anticipation, renewal, betters days. I have hope. We all have
more than hope. We have the promise of better days, and you can't find a better reason than that to
sing.