Christmas Cookie Shame
Some background information you need to know about me:
1. I'm not good at cooking or baking.
2. I don't have any interest in becoming good at cooking or baking (that's what Trader Joe's is for!)
3. I love my daughters SO MUCH.
A few years ago, there was a cookie contest at my daughters’ school. The cookie contest was very important to my oldest, so I brought out the baking supplies. And I really tried. I got my hands on my 80-something-year-old grandma’s special recipe, complete with homemade frosting, red and green sprinkles, and star-shaped cookie cutters.
Despite my efforts, the cookies, unsurprisingly, turned out super bad. The morning of the contest, I made everyone in my family taste them to see if they were embarrassing. My husband said they were "maybe one level above embarrassing," so I threw them out. I photograph everything, so I actually still have a picture of the inside of my trash can that day.
The effort was there. I had the right-shaped cookie cutters and everything. But the results were garbage-can-worthy.
At the time of this culinary tragedy, we had two hours to go until the party and I didn't want to embarrass my girl, so I Googled "easy, fast sugar cookie recipe." I did still use my grandma's icing, but I threw the second batch together in a whirlwind, so she wouldn’t show up empty handed. You guys—I promise this is real—I ended up WINNING the contest for “Best Tasting Cookies.”
Like, I got a prize and everything. I remember laughing and laughing that day because life is weird and sometimes bad cooks win.
Sometimes bad cooks win. Oh no, now I’m going to cry. This is the gospel. :)
Christmas Shame and the Christ Who Removes It
I did a lot of ironic gloating on the day of my cookie victory, because it was so hilarious to me that I won. I was fake gloating. I knew I didn't deserve the prize. Everyone who knew me knew I didn’t deserve the prize. And even though it's been like five years since this happened, it’s still the first thing I think of with the struggle of shame surrounding the holidays.
Christmas is a time to remember and rejoice in the birth of Jesus—the God-man who bore our shame and suffered for our sins because he so loved us. We celebrate that, but we can also easily get distracted by the celebratory surroundings rather than the Person we're celebrating. We've got the Christmas parties, the gifts, the Advent devotionals, the church events, the cookie contests, the family hosting . . . and isn't mingling family together, just by itself, often such a shame-triggering thing? We love our families, but there are histories—disagreements, tensions, misunderstandings, comparisons, and falling outs.
It’s a lot. We put pressure on ourselves to handle it all well and put on a great Christmas. Sometimes we get overwhelmed wondering if we are doing enough to point our kids to Christ during the season. We strive and we forget what we're striving for . . . and then maybe we hit a wall, feel like a failure, and reach for our post-putting-kids-to-bed sweats and snacks and Netflix. We shame ourselves with thoughts like, Why can’t I be a better mom? Better host? Better this or that? Better cookie contest baker? It really doesn't matter whether you're like me or whether your cookie awards are vast and well-earned—–it's just an easy time of year to struggle with shame.
But Christmas isn't about our holiday-themed mom performance. It's about the life-and-death-altering actions of Jesus—who walked where we walk. He has eternally ruled over heaven and earth, but in the incarnation, he made himself small and weak and lowly for our sakes, so he could see and sympathize and suffer, because of his great love for us:
But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. He poured out his Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior so that, having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7)
When Jesus saved us—when he poured out his Spirit onto us and justified us—he didn’t only give us hope for a happy someday. He gave us freedom from shame today, right now, this Christmas:
The Lord God will help me;
therefore I have not been humiliated;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
and I know I will not be put to shame.
(Isaiah 50:7)
For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame.” (Romans 10:11)
. . . keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)
Keep your eyes on Jesus this Christmas—Jesus, who despised shame, conquered sin, and sat down at the right hand of God. Jesus, who gives the prize to the undeserving. How amazing. Cookie success or cookie fail, our souls are secure because of him.
