Many of you have had the opportunity to watch the Christmas movies on the Family and Life networks. One movie involves a woman, once wealthy, who learned that her husband was having an affair. She divorces, ends up homeless, and at the end of the movie, which happens on the night before Christmas, she is in a position to own her own business. One would think that a Christmas movie would involve a more joyous beginning to add to its happy ending, but that is not the case in fiction or reality.
Christmas is more than just a holiday celebration. It is the realness of hope, deliverance, and a time of miracles. Christmas is Jesus’ birth, but it is also his life and resurrection. Like the movie, circumstances before Christmas can be very difficult. But we who know the real meaning of Christmas, know that regardless of the situation Christmas will come, is coming, and can happen any time of the year. When Christmas comes, it is unexpected. Christmas may not show up when we want it, but it comes right on time.
We all remember the woman who suffered with an issue of blood loss for 12 years (Luke 8:40-48). She suffered from blood loss, financial loss, and family loss. She was treated as a reject and taken advantage of by doctors. Although the Bible does not say, surely she was homeless and alone. Yet, this is a Christmas story. Many of us are living in a Christmas story. Regardless of whatever we are going through, we can rest assured, and know that it is just another Christmas story.
In a Christmas story, we may start out bleeding, faced with the issues of life, even suffering, and wondering how we will make it through. This is the conflict. There are at least two characters in the Christmas story. One is hurting, and the other is Jesus Christ—the one who brings healing. There is one central theme: can the main character make it to the end. The turning point of the story is when the protagonist decides to go through the falling action to see what the end will be. This is where we step into the bleeding woman’s Christmas story, the falling action, because she has already decided not give up in spite of her bleeding. The bleeding woman’s dilemma reveals that we know the story is about over when there is an obstacle in our way preventing us from resolving the conflict.
In this case, can this poor, outcast, get to Jesus in time so her bleeding can stop? We know how the story ends. She reaches out in faith and touches the hem of his garment, and her bleeding stops. Jesus closes out with the last line of the story: “Daughter, your faith has made you whole,” Luke 8:48. Yes, the story can last a long time, even 12 years, but if we are willing to endure the conflict, waiting on Christmas to come, we will realize that we had the power all along to deal with our hurt and bleeding. That power is our faith in Christmas, the belief in Jesus Christ. Unless, we hold on to our faith and continue to believe in Christmas, we will not make it through another Christmas story. We can make it through our Christmas story. It is a story of faith and hope.
