Why such the long night in December?

An image of the suffering Christ taken from an online church flyer.

The first ‘Blue Christmas’ service I held was in part for selfish reasons. I felt woefully inadequate and ill-equipped to respond. A family near our congregation in location and relationship suffered the sort of tragedy that upends an entire community. Every adjective that I have typed and deleted continues to fall short even after so many years and states of separation.

Once the initial wave of shock finally dripped away, I felt compelled to do something. This is likely a human motive that lingers in every one of us yet I can only speak for myself. I find my need to demonstrate my usefulness in the midst of crisis can be, at times, overwhelming. It is one of the reasons I became in EMT in college and why in seminary I insisted that my chaplaincy training occur at a trauma 1 hospital on the south side of Chicago. All or nothing is how I roll.

And yet for this communal episode I didn’t have many tools or resources with which to respond. Yes, I was the country pastor. Which meant I had an ample supply of hymnals, Bibles and books of lovely, well crafted prayers at my disposal. None of it seemed in the least useful. I also didn’t really know this family well, even as we lived our separate lives only a few fields apart.

 I reached out to them with trepidation and humility. I knocked on their door, I threw sticks to their overly attentive dog, I listened. And even, when appropriate and asked for, we prayed.

The tragedy occurred in mid-October, in the heart of the harvest, which laid a pall across what is otherwise a joyous and exhausting time of year for farmers. In the church world, it also meant that Advent (the season of worship in December) and holiday festivities were approaching with an ominous beat. With few other tools in my bag, I, with the wisdom of others at our church, decided to hold a Blue Christmas service in mid-December. And because I cringe at the descriptor ‘Blue Christmas’ with great angst, we called it our “Night of Lament and Healing.” Some churches have come to call it “The Longest Night.” Anything is better than an Elvis reference.

I organized the whole thing with only one family in mind. I kept wondering if they would come, if it would mean anything at all to them, if this endeavor was simply another example of the church’s futility in a wind-worn world. Through my plan-making and liturgy writing, though, I started wondering about others who might need a service like this. I even started praying, not just for the one family, but for all the folks in our congregation and community whom I knew were suffering in some way or another.

The holiday season is typically one of joy, nostalgia and good cheer. It can also be brutal for anyone who is struggling. Rockwellian pictures abound to remind those who have no family of what they lack. Toys in ads to speak of children lost. Lights blazing and creating shadows of longing and abandonment. I’ve come to believe that offering a night, a single night of worship that can speak to this dark side of the month, can be a gift for a community.

Thus, we are offering it at my congregation here in Illinois. It’s a new experience for them and it has become a sacred event for me. That first year only a handful came. We lit candles and prayed fervently for Christ’s light, we cried through the silence and gave thanks that God does not neglect God’s suffering ones. We sang out our pain and we left with hugs and heavy hearts, made a little lighter knowing that God’s presence was affirmed through a small group that stood together for each other.

When we open our doors as a church and offer prayers for others, we have no way of knowing whether the others will ever show up. Which is really a question about our own necessity. Yet, it’s never supposed to be about us. The numbers served are irrelevant (assuming stats and tears are markers of our  usefulness as preachers and parish); these tools of prayer, worship and scripture are what Christ gives to us to give away. We are called to be where God’s people are living because Christ is already there. It’s all we get and often it is enough.