This is a season in which both joy and loneliness can be amplified. Many will reconnect with families and friends to eat and laugh and relax. For others loneliness will be intensified. The very fact that so many families come together and celebrate magnifies their own disconnected lives. When we don’t experience the love of other human beings, the love of God seems equally distant.
But this is exactly what made the life and message of Jesus so significant. In the midst of people going about their daily lives – with the same desires and concerns we have today – while religious thinkers were speculating about a holy god, Jesus confronted us with a new reality.