“Hard doesn’t mean bad. In Christ, hard things can become a labour of love.”
Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – December 23, 2025
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:4a, 5b
One of my favourite parts of the Christmas season is reading picture books of the Christmas story with my children. I am as moved as they are by how beautifully the artists imagine the holy family making their journey to the stable in Bethlehem. But what I have come to appreciate as an adult is that these beautiful books, like many of our favourite Christmas carols, gloss over the harsh realities surrounding Jesus’ birth. And I wonder, why did it have to be so hard? God could have made his Son’s coming as peaceful and picturesque as a picture book. Instead, Mary’s untimely pregnancy meant she and Joseph suffered humiliation and probably ostracization from their community; then she was forced to give birth in the most inhospitable location without midwife or mother at her side; the family had to flee, becoming refugees to escape Herod’s jealous rage. The list of hardships goes on. Jesus’ entire life from birth to the cross would be marked by hardship, for him as well as for those who followed him. Why did it have to be so hard?
It’s a question that arises so often about the hardships I see in my own small sphere of life –for the relations whose adopted child carries wounds that will never heal, for the friend nursing his wife through the final stage of dementia, for the family members waiting weeks in NICU to take their babies home. There is no ready answer. But then again, the hardship we experience and witness in this world sheds light on why that first Christmas had to be so very hard, for could we have received Jesus any other way? There is no intellectual answer for the question, “Why does it have to be so hard?”. There is only Jesus, stepping bravely and fully into the hardship of the human experience so that, as the prophet foretold, he might bear our griefs and carry our sorrows.
But Jesus endured hardship to offer us much more than sympathy. From his birth, he was already reversing the curse, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground” (Genesis 3:19). By the sweat of his brow, he took the rotten fruit of the serpent’s lie and turned it instead into a gift of love. In Christ, the hard thing is no longer the bad thing, no longer a meaningless infliction, but a labour of love.
Whatever the cross is you’ve been given to carry, carry it as an offering of love, and remember you have a Saviour who bears your burdens, and the other side of all that hardship is glory. But, of course, to see the whole picture, we must journey with Jesus from the manger all the way to the empty tomb of Easter.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank you for willingly entering into the hardships of humanity. Help me to embrace the hard things in my life as labours of love and to always find my rest and hope in you. Amen.
Application
Instead of becoming bitter when the going gets hard, look to Jesus, who chose a hard life out of love. Ask him to help you reframe your situation from a curse to an act of service to him.
Related Reading
Matthew 11:28-29; Matthew 25:40; Galatians 3:13; Hebrews 4:15
Worship Resource
Andrew Peterson feat. Jill Phillips: Labor of Love
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