I spend time with people in the final chapters of their lives. In those moments, people speak with remarkable clarity about the things that matter most to them. Suddenly, unimportant things fall to the wayside. If there is regret, it is almost never about success left unachieved or recognition missed, but about time — people regret not spending more time with family and not slowing down for loved ones. They regret relationships taken for granted. Again and again, in the face of mortality, people wish they had been more present in the small, ordinary spaces of love, friendship and family.
The Christmas story speaks directly into this human longing. In the gospels, we see a God who chooses simplicity. God does not enter the world through power or prestige. He is not born in the power-center of ancient Rome or welcomed by rulers. Instead, he comes as an infant — poor, dependent and sleeping in an animal feeding trough. His first witnesses were shepherds, ordinary people doing ordinary work. From the very beginning, God’s way in the world is not domination, but nearness.
In the Gospel of John, we are told that the word who was with God and was God became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1). The eternal son steps out of glory and into obscurity, choosing family life, hidden years and faithfulness in quiet places. But Christmas does not stand alone. The humility of the manger points forward to the humility of the cross. The God who enters the world in vulnerability is the same God who gives himself fully and vulnerably in suffering love.
At the cross, God meets us at our deepest fear — not only our regret over time lost, but our mortality itself. Jesus does not merely affirm what matters most; he redeems it. He bears our sin, our striving and our misplaced hopes, and in so doing, he restores us for love — love of God and love of one another. The small, ordinary spaces of relationship we deeply long for are not incidental to the gospel — they are what the gospel heals and makes new.
Seen this way, Christmas offers an unexpected answer to the regrets people carry at the end of life. The longing to have loved more fully, to have stayed longer, and to have been more present is not merely nostalgia — it is a clue from the soul. The Christmas story suggests that this longing reflects something true about reality itself: that love, not accomplishment, is what finally endures — and that God’s answer to this longing is his presence.
Merry Christmas!
Rev. Christianne Zeiger is a palliative care and end-of-life chaplain at Kenai Peninsula Home Health.
