We lived in Stanley, the center between the three. On Sunday mornings my dad would drive east to the first church, lead worship, get in the car and drive to the church in our town. After worship he was back in the car driving to the westernmost church, after which he would circle back home. It was a morning that began driving at 7 a.m. and brought him back well after 12’o clock noon.
He seemed to be overly proud of saying that after being stopped for speeding on his first Sunday on this circuit, the sheriff’s deputies would mark their watches by the time Roy Scott would drive through and then clear the road.Most any Sunday, I was oblivious to this schedule. We would get up in time for church in our town, which was next door to where we lived. By the time my dad returned home after the 3rd service it was time for lunch, or dinner as they called the noontime meal in northern Wisconsin.
But that Christmas, the one in my childhood when Christmas Day fell on a Sunday, that’s the one I remember. Imagine a 5-year-old bounding out of bed on Christmas Day. There’s maybe no better feeling in the world. The tree has exploded with gifts beneath it, and that’s as I remember that morning. Except … except my dad was already gone. And there were no presents to be opened … until he returned.
I might as well have been at the dentist. It was painful. The gifts taunted me. The tree sparkled as if its lights were little eyes winking at me and saying, “Not yet, little boy. These gifts are still mine.”
I don’t know what you’ve waited for most in your life. What you still yearn for … The thing that would bring you the most joy if only it would come …
I know that nothing, not even a young child waiting to open presents, compares with the desire to be accepted, known and loved -- by others, and especially by God.
We hoped for a Savior, but we didn’t know how or when a Savior would come. As it turns out, we were quite surprised.
The Savior didn’t come as royalty but in poverty. Not in a far-off place but in a village. The Savior wasn’t protected by security to keep him from us, but rather those who were present called to us and said, Come! Look! See!
If the thing you’re yearning for most is peace, in your mind or heart or the world, then today is the answer to that wish. Not the holiday itself, but Christ.
We tend to evaluate our relationship with God by how we’re holding up our end. What we forget is that our relationship with God is profoundly set in motion by what God does -- especially what God does at Christmas.
The gift is made special by the giver.
I remember another Christmas, also in Stanley, when I received a snow globe from Solveig Ondahl, the grandmotherly woman who baby-sit me and also, as it were, taught me how to tie my shoes and helped me learn to read. I did the latter while sitting at her formica-topped kitchen table and read the backs of cereal boxes at breakfast.
What I remember of her husband, Ingvold, was that he had thick, gnarled knuckles and had, in fact, lost two fingers on his left hand. He worked at the mill, and often had already left for work by the time my mom dropped me off at the Ondahls’ house.
What I remember most about Solveig is that she let me drink Coca-Cola, which never would have been allowed at home. We had a secret pact, she and I.
One Christmas she gave me a snow globe. I admired it and was carrying it around the living room showing it off when it slipped from my hands and crashed to the floor. There’s nothing sadder than watching the water pour out of a shattered snow globe, leaving nothing but little shards of glass and snow sprinkles in a tiny, pathetic puddle.My dad admonished me for my carelessness, and then said that tomorrow morning we were going to go down to the Five-and-Dime store and buy a new one. And then he said, and don’t tell Mrs. Ondahl that you broke the other one; she’ll never know.
Why was it, I wondered, that he appeared to be more concerned about Mrs. Ondahl feeling bad that I had broken her gift than he did for me who had just broken a present?
Is it that the giver of the gift is as important as the one who receives it? Could there be truth to the adage that the joy of giving surpasses the joy of receiving?
Our relationship with God is profoundly defined by God being the giver of the gift. And should we forget what the gift is, we hear the words of today’s Scripture:
To paraphrase:
Going through a long line of prophets, God addressed our ancestors in different ways for centuries. Then he spoke to us directly through Jesus. By his Son, God created the world in the beginning, and it will all belong to the Son at the end. Jesus perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature. He holds everything together by what he says—powerful words!
And Jesus became so much greater than the other messengers, such as angels, that he received a more important title than theirs. [MSG + NRSV]
I guess, when we forget which gift is the most important, these words remind us.
We live in a time of incredible abundance, by the standards of the rest of the world and the standards of history. It is hard, when you have much, to remember what is most important.
I don’t believe Jesus would come down too harshly on our secular celebrations, as long as they don’t dishonor God. Jesus was always finding the divine in the midst of the ordinary: food, housework, dwelling, fishing.
It’s that Jesus reminds us – Jesus shows us – not that ordinary things don’t matter, but what matters most.
That Christmas morning when I was 5 wasn’t the only time in my life I sat nervously and fidgeted while waiting for something good to happen. I imagine I’ve lost some hours of my life dreading that bad things would happen, too.
But like a baby will come when a baby comes, Jesus comes when Jesus needs to. Now. In every moment. Because in every moment, what we need most is a Savior.
Like every true gift, the nature of giver is revealed in the gift of Jesus.
Merry Christmas!
Photos courtesy of BigRig Travels Video Vault, Of Woods and Words and Jackson Scott
