WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ALL ABOUT
Two thousand years ago, in a lowly manger in a far-away place, the Son of God was born into the world. To have been there – to have seen the infant Jesus in person – would have produced within us a tremendous sense of awe. It would have left us feeling to things, I think. One, we don’t deserve to be here; and two, this is where we’ve belonged all along.
We don’t deserve to be here, and this is where we’ve belonged all along. How can an event produce two such feelings that seem to be at opposite ends of the emotional spectrum? Listen to a story by Dr. Joseph L. Wheeler entitled, “The Snow of Christmas.” Yet as you do, I want you to keep those two ideas in mind: We don’t deserve to be here, and this is where we’ve belonged all along. Now listen to my slightly edited version of Dr. Wheeler’s story.
Three doors he had slammed on her: the bedroom, the front and the car. What started it all, he really couldn’t say. It was just one of those misunderstandings that grow into arguments. In a matter of minutes he had managed to unravel a relationship that had taken years to build. His tongue – out of control – revealed an accusing mind and a withdrawing heart.
“Catherine,” John said, “it’s all been a huge mistake – you and me. I’ve tried and tired. God knows, I’ve tried! But it just won’t work anymore. You’re…your wrong for me, and I’m wrong for you.”
“John!” Catherine cried, in a state of disbelief.
“Don’t interrupt me,” John shot back. “I mean it. We’re through. What we thought was love, wasn’t. It just wasn’t. No sense prolonging a dead thing. Don’t worry, I’ll see to it that you don’t suffer financially. I’ll keep making the house payments. You can keep what’s in the bank accounts, and I’ll send child support for Julie.”
“John!” Catherine cried again.
He came to his senses – almost – as he looked into his wife’s anguished eyes and witnessed the shock and the tears. But his pride was at stake. Ignoring the wounded appeal of those azure eyes, he had stormed out – his leaving punctuated by the three slamming doors.
Three weeks later, here he was – pacing a lonely motel room 3000 miles away from home. Home? John had no home. He only had his job – albeit a very good one – and his Mercedes. That was all.
Unable to face the prosecutorial effects of his heart and mind, he turned on the television, but that didn’t help a whole lot. There were Christmas-related commercials and programs on every single channel and one of the ads featured a golden-haired girl who looked a lot like his daughter, Julie.
He remembered Julie’s wide-eyed anticipation of every Christmas. The presents under the tree that she’d pick up and evaluate by weight and size and sound – and the finesse with which she’d unwrap and rewrap them. He found it hard to be stern with her, for did not Catherine, too, unwrap them on the sly? It seemed that Catherine had been constitutionally unable to wait until
Christmas either. Julie came about this affliction naturally, John supposed.
Memories flooded in upon him in torrents now. How he had loved Christmas, even as a boy at home. His had always been the responsibility of decorating the Christmas tree – a tree he got to pick out himself. A real tree, never a fake! The fragrance of a real tree, the sticky feel of a real tree – even the shedding of a real tree – were all intertwined in the memories of the years.
His mother had broken down when she heard about the end of John and Catherine’s marriage. Catherine had slipped into her heart – becoming the daughter she had always wanted – from that first Christmas when John had brought her home from college. When John proposed to Catherine – on a Christmas Eve, no less – he had apologized for the plainness of his home compared to the estate where she had grown up.
Catherine’s eyes had blazed at that apology. “Don’t you ever apologize for your home, John!” she exclaimed. “There is love here – and a mother and a father – not just my lonely, embittered father rattling around in all those endless rooms alone. This is the kind of home I’ve longed for all my life.”
“This has got to stop!” John admonished himself. “There can be no turning back now!” Out of the motel room he strode, down the hall, down the stairs and out into the city. Eventually John came to a large New England-style church. The front doors were opening, and floating out on the night air were the celestial strains of “Ave Maria.”
It was more than he could take. Down the street John strode – mile after mile – until he had left the residential district behind. On and on he walked. He did not stop until the city lights no longer kept him from seeing the stars. As he looked up into the cold, December sky, for the first time in three traumatic weeks he faced his inner self. And he did not like what he saw.
Etched for all time in the grooves of his memory were the terrible words he had spoken to the woman to whom he had pledged his life. How could he have been so cruel? That brought him face-to-face with the rest of his life. How could he fix what he had so foolishly broken?
John knew what he had to do. Although bone-weary from staying up all night and from the frantic search for airline reservations, he was far too tense to be sleepy. When he reached his destination he rented a car. His heart pounded louder as each mile slipped by on the odometer.
At last! The city limits. Had the road to his house ever seemed so long? Then he turned that last corner on the street to his house. Darkness…no lights, no car. He raced inside the house but no one was there. Where could they be? And then it hit him. Could they be at his parents’ house? He rushed back into the car and sped out of town – hoping against hope that he was guessing right. He didn’t dare to trust his fate to a telephone call.
About an hour later he saw the cheery lights of his parents’ house. Through the front window he could see the multicolored lights on the Christmas tree. And there – in the driveway – was his wife’s car.
He passed the house, then circled back on an alley road, cutting his lights as he approached the house. His heart was thumping like a jackhammer. He ever so quietly opened the back door and stepped into the gloom of the dark hallway. Then he heard a child’s voice singing. As he peeked around the corner, he saw his parents watching their grandchild sing, “Silent Night, Holy Night.” There was a look of ethereal beauty about his daughter that night, lost as she was in her Bethlehem world.
“Oh, God,” he prayed, “shield her from trouble – from pain – from growing up too soon.” Then, like a sword thrust through his chest, came the realization that he – her own father – had thrust her out of that protected world children need so much. He wondered what his daughter had been told. Would she still love him? Would she ever trust him again?
John now turned to look at Catherine. She was leaning against a window frame, wearing a rose-colored gown that revealed rare beauty of face and form. But her face – such total desolation John had never seen before. How woebegone – how utterly weary – she appeared that night. A lone tear glistened as it trickled down her cheek.
Oh, how he loved her! He could hold back no longer. Silently, he approached her. Was it too late? Suddenly, Catherine sensed his presence, and turned away from the vista of falling snow to look at him. She delayed the moment of reckoning by initially refusing to meet his eyes. Then slowly – very slowly – she raised her wounded eyes to his…and searched for an answer.
Oh, the relief that flooded over John when he saw her eyes widen as they rushed to embrace.
And then there were three at the window – John, Catherine and Julie – the rest of the world for-gotten in the regained heaven of their own. And the snow of Christmas Eve continued to fall.
John did not deserve to be there. But that was where he belonged all along. So it is with us as we gaze upon the Christ child. Our lives are marred with the stain of sin that pervades our lives as we callously turn our backs on God, time and time again. Yet we see something in the eyes of the Christ Child, don’t we? There’s an innocence – an unconditional love – that we long for more than anything else in the world. This is where we belong. This is where we’ve belonged all along.
Undeserving, yet fully forgiven, accepted and loved. So what do we do with that now? Where do we go from here? Well, that’s up to you. If you’re not transformed, standing as we are on the brink of the Incarnation, then something’s wrong. For God is here with open arms. Don’t turn away this time. Turn to God and let him give you peace. That, my friends, is what Christmas is all about. Amen.
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