Christmas seems to amplify everything.

Goodness seems extra good. The evening and morning news love to run feel-good pieces this time of year. These special stories are so heart-warming, people being reunited just in time for Christmas, miracles happening in the hospital, people making beautiful sacrifices for others. Because it’s Christmas, these stories seem extra good.

On the flip side, evil seems extra evil. People getting trampled in shopping malls, house fires in which families lose everything, children abandoned and alone, people dying too young. When something bad happens during this season, it seems extra sad, extra tragic.

When we gather with family and friends, their love seems so special in December. When we look at our children, opening their gifts and singing their Christmas songs, we feel a surge of joy and thankfulness for their health. If we have an abundance of food and shelter and security, Christmas overflows with these material comforts even more. If it’s been a good year, Christmas seems extra good.

But this amplification works the other way, too. If we’re lonely, Christmas makes us extra lonely. If we’re depressed, Christmas is especially difficult. If we’ve lost someone, December is a month of compounded grief. If we’re struggling to stay afloat, this season can almost drown us. If it’s been a bad year, Christmas seems to make all that pain more acute.

I keep hearing people’s stories, heartbreaking ones. Stories of grief and loss, stories of heartbreak and struggle. Almost every day I add someone to my prayer list, someone who’s lost a loved one, struggling under a burden, or trying to make a tough decision. I think about it all, and it makes me feel hopeless.

But God calls us to hope, because hope is a by-product of faith. Hope is a fruit of our belief. Hope expresses faith.

When those angels came and shouted jubilantly to those shepherds…

“Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests”

…they weren’t talking about the fact that God had made the world a peaceful place. Those angels were exclaiming that Peace came to earth: a Savior from sin, from this sinful world.

“For today in the town of David a SAVIOR has been born to you, his is Christ, THE LORD! (emphasis mine).”

God never promised a peaceful or perfect earth, but through Jesus, he saved us from this fallen place. No matter what happens here, no matter what kind of Christmas we’re having, one day we will leave this world and all of its troubles. Everything wrong will be right. Every tear will be wiped away. Every feeling of loneliness, sadness, grief, pain, and despair will vanish. And the joy…oh the amplified joy!…that will be ours.

In the meantime, we must follow the lead of those shepherds, who didn’t just sit with the news they heard. They ran with it. First to the manger to worship, then to the city to share it.