Hallmark and Happy Endings
/The calendar turns to December, and suddenly my usual TV shows begin to collect on my DVR while I binge on Hallmark movies. We interrupt your regularly-scheduled viewing for a nightly dose of sugar cookies, Christmas parades, and love conquering all manner of obstacles and being sealed with a very chaste kiss. Boy meets girl and they live happily ever after in a small-town paradise.
Why do we love these shows so much (and I know I’m not alone here)? In a word, predictability. Happy endings tied up with a Christmas bow. It is comforting to know what’s coming next, to trust with certainty that it is all going to turn out in the end. And all the better if the happy story is covered in all the trappings of a cozy holiday. In the Hallmark world, every Christmas dream really does come true. Night after night, the pattern repeats with happy dependability.
I sometimes like to think about how I would write the Christmas story. As much as I like a good rags-to-riches story, I do not go in so much for riches-to-rags. I would never write about the King of kings coming to earth without at least a little bit of pomp and circumstance. Perhaps he could be born to an ordinary family to experience regular life, but not to an unwed virgin teenager. And certainly we can do better than a feeding trough in a stable for his delivery room. Let’s get the animals and shepherds out of there, too. For the next scene, at least give me the comfort of stability, not a life on the run from a murderous king when he is an infant. And don’t get me started on the scenes of his adult life, where he is arrested and unjustly sentenced to death.
But God wrote this story as only he would do. Not predictable by any means, but perfect in every way. A King who bends down and experiences the worst of all possible worlds. One who knows unfulfilled longing and deep want. Homeless on the night of his birth, destitute, a refugee before he can even talk. Misunderstood, betrayed, beaten, and finally executed. A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. This is our Savior. He is not what we expected, but he is everything we need and more.
He is what we need when our lives, and our Christmases, are nothing like a Hallmark movie. As we struggle and grieve, we can rest in our Redeemer who understands and is with us in our suffering. He is not a stranger to lament. Jesus is our gentle Shepherd, acquainted with all our ways, who gently leads us through the valley of the shadow of death. He is the light of the world that dispels all darkness, and he knows better than we do how dark that darkness is. He lived it then, and he lives it again with us. Our Emmanuel is with us in every sense of the word, and we can trust that because he was born to a young and unprepared mother, laid in a manger, and lived a life that was as far from a Hallmark movie as we can imagine.
Though life is chaotic and unpredictable, and our Savior’s life story is not what we would have written, it does have one similarity to my beloved Hallmark movies: we know how this one turns out in the end. The closing credits roll over a heavenly home that is far more glorious than anything this world has to offer. Every promise fulfilled, every desire met in our King. Perfect redemption, pure joy. The bride has her Beloved. This is the happily-ever-after of which all other happy endings are mere shadows. And it is infinitely more certain than the most predictable movie ending.
