Merry not-quite-Christmas-but-we're-almost-there! ...I suppose there's a reason people just say 'Merry Christmas', even if it's not the exact day. Oh well.
This week I cheated a little bit and I didn't choose an untranslatable word, really. Or even a single language. But! This is still a lexicon, so I have to have some kind of language-y thing going on, so: 'Merry Christmas' in Finnish is hyvää joulua. In Russian it's c Рождеством. In Spanish it's Feliz Navidad. German is frohe Weihnachten.
I won't subject you to a list of its translation in every language I've used words from, so far; you get the idea.
It's Christmas!!! We've talked a lot, the last few weeks, about how hard it can be to feel the joy of the season, the peace and the love and the hope, but we haven't talked much about how great it is when we do feel it. When we see our families and get to embrace them, and feel at peace in a world of chaos, when we listen to the carols and feel Christ with us, feel the joy of His coming, when we see children opening their presents, and in them, our hopes for the future. When we feel love for those around us, for God, for Christ, for everyone sharing the holiday with us, around the world and across time and space.
Hold onto that. It's not just a commercialized retail holiday, even as that is sometimes all we see.
Those we have lost are with us still, even if not physically.
The problems of the world are not insurmountable, if we all work together.
God is not dead, not asleep, not missing or unfeeling or unmovable and cold. God is here.
