Devotional

And the angel said unto them, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”

— Luke 2:10 (as quoted by Linus in A Charlie Brown Christmas)

At Christmas, all roads lead home.

— Marjorie Holmes (attributed)

I’ve always loved words. As a kid, I had a giant unabridged dictionary that I’d regularly pull out just to discover new ones, rolling them around in my mouth like exotic candies. I know, I know—what a nerd. What can I say? I'm a lexophile and even a bit of a sesquipedalian. I kid, I kid, but it’s true that words have always felt like a playground to me.

When I came across the word zeitgeist, I was enchanted. It sounded mysterious, important, almost magical. I learned it meant “the spirit of the age”—the pulse and atmosphere of a time and place. The word stuck with me, even expanding the way I saw the world, as the best words do. I began to think of seasons as having a spirit, a character all their own.

I suppose that’s why I’ve often thought of Christmas as having its own zeitgeist. There is the story itself—the true tall tale of the High King of Heaven taking on flesh, stepping down to Earth to be born in a manger, coming close enough to feel what it’s like to be us, close enough to save us. But there’s also the spirit that hovers at the edges of the story, drawing so much of popular music, movies, and the communal rhythms of life into orbit around the Bethlehem star.

When the Christian supergroup Point of Grace invited me to join them for their Comfort and Joy Christmas Tour, they suggested we write a song together named after the tour. I showed up at Shelley’s house on a Monday morning in March, weary and a bit beat-up after a sleepless night. I’d been blindsided with some bad news the day before and was brokenhearted. Maybe not the ideal state of mind to write about comfort and joy. Or maybe it was perfect.

As we sat around their kitchen table, our conversation kept circling back to the things we loved about the holidays when we were younger—the things that made Christmas Christmas for us. We talked about the strangeness of caroling on neighbors’ doorsteps. And how, for a whole month, secular culture moves over for the sacred, as stories and songs about the newborn king—Christ the Messiah—fill our screens and airwaves. We marveled at how the Peanuts gang gets away with preaching the gospel on prime-time television every year. We remembered the specialness of gathering with family around a table, some of whom we’d only see that one time of year, like my great-aunt Josie. Even just naming these things, I could feel my spirit rise, like a child waking up on Christmas morning.

It struck me that what we were describing wasn’t just nostalgia. It was something like the zeitgeist of Christmas, and the way the mere tenor of the season can soften hearts and open doors, giving us glimpses of a deep abiding goodness that whispers from behind the curtain of reality. The gospel is the heart of it—the greatest story ever told, potent enough to heal the wounded heart of the world. But even the cultural expressions, traditions, and feelings that tag along with it carry a kind of secondary healing—like harmonic resonances of the melody at the center, the good news of Emmanuel, God with us.

Think of It’s a Wonderful Life, where George Bailey’s despair gives way to the joy of discovering how deeply his life mattered to others. Think of candlelit church services where the final hymn swells and the whole room seems to glow. Think of the poignant charm of a cartoon beagle’s blanket-toting friend reciting the Gospel of Luke on television to millions. These things may not be the good news itself, but they echo it, point us toward it, and sometimes even surprise us with healing of their own.

I came into that writing day feeling raw and worn. But just thinking about the things that make up the pulse and atmosphere of Christmas—the carols, the traditions, the movies we’ve watched a hundred times, the laughter at the dinner table—worked its own kind of grace on me. By the end of the day, I felt better. It was the spirit of the season, in March of all times, that ministered to me.

In the end, that’s what our song tried to capture: Not only is the message of Christmas healing, but even its trimmings carry comfort and joy. They adorn the month of December like ornaments on the boughs of a tree, beautiful in their own right but all the more meaningful because they reflect the light of the Christ-child at the center of it all.

I experienced how these tidings of comfort and joy can turn the tide—not only in my own heart but in the world around me. They roll back the currents of despair and cynicism, of isolation and estrangement, “to save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray.” In their gentle pull we’re drawn deeper, not only into God’s heart but also our own. And from there into childlikeness, wonder, and the wide-eyed joy of feeling loved, seen, and safe.

At Christmas, the greatest gift under the tree, of course, is the very heart of God, wrapped in his own little boy, the Christ child, for all the world to see. And with that gift come tidings of comfort, tidings of joy—tidings that turn the tide, as they did for me the day we wrote this song, carrying me out of the dark storm I’d found myself in and into the light again. Emmanuel takes center stage, declaring God with us! But if we listen closely, we can also hear the Spirit of the season whispering from the wings: All is calm, all is bright, and all shall be well.

Emmanuel! Hallelujah for such tidings of comfort and joy! Turn the tide in our hearts and restore to us the wonder and childlike faith of knowing you are with us.