After-Christmas Let-Down

Joy To The World has come and gone.

I won’t hear that song again for months.

I am in my annual post-Christmas slump. I’m miserable and I deserve it. I’ve earned it. Back on November 3^rd, I put away the book manuscript I was working on and I haven’t touched it since. Now, I don’t want to.

November marked the beginning of my holiday season as Ginny and I celebrated our 41^st anniversary with a vacation trip. We returned to celebrate Thanksgiving. Then we celebrated three or four family birthdays in a row. Then we celebrated Christmas. Then we celebrated New Years. Then we celebrated our daughter’s wedding…

I never want to celebrate anything ever again!

I hereby declare myself celibate!

No. That’s not the right word—but it might as well be. All those celebrations leave no time for anything else.

Today is January 6^th—the day my grandparents called Old Christmas, the day liturgical churches observe as the time of the Magi’s arrival, the day some churches say is the actual birthday of Christ, the day when many churches hold Christmas pageants.

A day when I’m worn out and never want to celebrate anything ever again.

A day when I’ve been thinking a lot about decay.

Yes, decay.

The process whereby everything dwindles down, looses energy, falls apart, rots. Entrophies—is that a word? Let me look it up. Be right back…

No. That’s not the right word and I’m not sure what the right word is. The idea I want is that things degenerate from fresh and new to old and wrinkled as they move toward death. Like the sun loosing energy, light and heat fading, going black, dieing.

Or, more a case in point—like me.

Once young and strong and virile, now, I’m me. Weakening, souring, feeling old, useless, unwanted, decayed, degenerating, worn out, failing—and sorry for myself.

Poor John.

He’s human.

What brought on this happy train of thought? I mean more than just the post Christmas blues?

Well, two things:

The stairs on our vacation cabin back in November. And news that a neighborhood couple who’ve been married as long as we have are considering a divorce.

When we got to the cabin, I grabbed two suitcases and started up the stairs. Couldn’t make it. Had to rest on the landing. What happened? I’ve run up and down stairs all my life. Then it hit me—all my life is one hell of a long time!

I’m wearing out.

Then when we went swimming. I used to be a good swimmer. Won medals. Used to explore for underwater artifacts. Now, I can hardly dip my head under without loosing my breath. Come up sputtering, gasping for air.

What happened to me?

I ain’t the me I know.

This surprised me.

And I care less about things. (but that’s another thought train).

The fact is that things decay. People, buildings, relationships, love, interests, cars, me—we all wind down.

We are dieing.

This is really a morbid thought except for one thing.

Resurrection.

The Christian doctrine of resurrection confronts us with the fact that it’s Jesus or nothing. The physical universe appears to be headed toward a state of equilibrium—all temperature a uniform cold. All energy evenly dissipated. All life bland. Non-existence. A great gray nothing without form or feature.

St. Paul said, “If Christ be not raised , your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins…. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable”.

No fact of the Gospel is more important than resurrection.

Yes the Incarnation at Christmas looks more picturesque than an empty tomb.

Christ has come. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

The fact that Christ died for our sin and that He conquered death is the only hope anyone has—unless you regard oblivion as a hope.

But the Scripture teaches there is no oblivion—we will spend all eternity somewhere.

We were not made to die.

But to live.

As Paul said, “If Christ be not risen , then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain”.

He continues, “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept .

“For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

“For as in Adam all die , even so in Christ shall all be made alive .

“But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming. Then cometh the end…”.

So, I feel a trifle down in my post-Christmas slump.

The radio doesn’t play Joy To The World and Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer anymore. The decorations we haven’t put away yet are getting dusty. The big red candles have melted to look like lumpish slugs. I had to ask my son to change a light bulb for me because I was scared to wobble on the ladder. So I fell asleep in my chair before the ball dropped. So my arthritis annoys me. My sight fades. I feel old. Tired out. World-weary.

I think about decay.

Yet another thought creeps into my malaise—resurrection.

Yes, the night cometh—but joy cometh in the morning.