"Silent Night, Lonely Night"

Here are excerpts from the article Silent Night, Lonely Night by Carolyn McCulley:

Christmas often staggers under the weight of human emotion and expectation — just as it has from the very start.

From a human perspective, the first "Christmas," so to speak, was simultaneously crowded and lonely. Dispirited Jews shuffled around the region, required to be part of a new, universal Roman census for possibly the first time. (Previously Palestine had been excluded from the Roman census because Jews were exempt from serving in the Roman army.) Among those sojourners was a young couple with a whiff of scandal about them.

Despite her advanced pregnancy, Mary and Joseph traversed 70 miles of difficult, mountainous terrain to be counted and most likely taxed. Her questionable pregnancy may have deprived Mary of the friendship of other women back in Nazareth, but there in Bethlehem, it's very likely she gave birth without the usual crowd of womenfolk there to support her and rejoice with her at the birth of a son. And then, because there was no room at the inn, Mary placed her son in a manger.

Lowly shepherds — excluded from society because their work was dirty and it prevented them from participating in the religious activities of the community — and stargazing pagans from the East were the only people who seemed to note the birth of Jesus. Scripture does not record that any other human beings noticed or celebrated.[...]

At that moment, Mary was experiencing a fulfillment of her cousin's blessing: "Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!" (Luke 1:45). Elizabeth, who bore the reproach of barrenness for so many years, was the one to utter this blessing to her younger cousin with the mysterious pregnancy. As she spoke those words, an elderly widow named Anna who was waiting in the temple in Jerusalem and praying for the redemption of Israel. Three women at different seasons of life but each trusting God for His timetable in the midst of their grief, loneliness, and trials — the weight of human emotion.

The day Jesus was born, many Jews were eagerly expecting a messiah to come one day. Their expectation was for political deliverance, not deliverance from sin. They thought their biggest problem was Rome and thus their solution was an earthly king.

Just like today, expectation and emotion ruled the day. And just like the day Jesus was born, there is a true perspective from heaven that transcends our own parochial outlook. [...]

What I love about this song is that I'm reminded of the one event that can bear up under the weight of human emotion and expectation. [...]

No matter how lonely Christmas feels to any of us this year, we know someone who has endured far more loneliness than we ever will — and He did it to rescue us. [...] in physical misery and torturous pain, Jesus cried out from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" His loneliness we will never know, but His joy we do know in part now and will know even more in the new heavens and new earth.