A Christmas Eve Meditation
I had a thought this past week while getting ready for tonight. But first, let me tell you where I was when the thought came to me. I was on the phone trying to get in touch with the physical therapist at the nursing home where my father-in-law now lives. Like me, my father-in-laws’s name is David, though he goes by Dave, which helps to distinguish whose gifts are whose under the tree on Christmas morning. 11 years ago, Dave suffered an automobile accident that cost him both his arms. He started out one morning with ten fingers and two elbows and by night fall he didn’t have them anymore. To this day, no one can truly say how the accident came about. Sometimes, life is just cruel. But I have also found that life has a necessarily good response to cruelty. My mother-in-law, along with a whole village of neighbors, family, and friends have been that response.
My mother-in-law advocated from the beginning that her husband could walk again (because the accident also completely destroyed Dave’s knees), and balance and feed himself again, and that whatever he couldn’t figure out how to do on his own, she’d do with him. And for 11 years they’ve lived happily and securely in their straight front colonial. But a couple months ago, Dave got up from his seat at the kitchen counter, turned right for the living room, and crumpled to the floor. At the hospital, the x-ray showed no signs of trouble. I guess his legs had just gone far enough.
To get the necessarily good response we’ve come to believe in, we all helped Dave move into a nursing home. The staff there are extraordinarily kind, as is Dave’s roommate, a gruff but gentle soul of a man named Willard who likes to listen to 50s Doo-wop music.
A few days ago, however, I was trying to get in touch with the physical therapist at the nursing home to ask about a wheelchair. When I called, this is what I heard instead: “If you know your party’s extension, you may dial it at any time. For a list of staff names, press 1.” What’s this? I wondered annoyedly. Where’s Karen the receptionist? She always answers the phone like I imagine Mary answered the cries of Jesus. Now, now, this is Karen, how can I help you? She must have stepped away to go to the bathroom or on vacation.
I didn’t know the extension I wanted, and I wasn’t sure I knew how to spell the name of Dave’s physical therapist, so I lazily pressed 0 for the operator. “Hello, this is the nurse’s station.” Even better, I thought. “Hi. Could you transfer me to the PT?” “Sure, please hold for a moment.” I waited, and waited, and waited. When it was clear no one was going to pick up, not even an answering machine, I hung up and called back. Maybe Karen will be back from the bathroom.
“If you know your party’s extension, you may dial it at any time. For a list of staff names, press 1.” I pressed 0 again. I’ll take my chances on getting a nurse again, which I did. “Hi. I was trying to get in touch with physical therapy, but the transfer didn’t go through.” “Sorry about that. I know no one is in their office at this time, but I’ll put you through directly to their voicemail.” “Thank you, that would be fine.” I waited, and waited, and waited, and this time I did hear something. It was that horrible trilling sound you get just before you know you’re about to be hung up on, the sound of a fax machine stuck in 1989, and then, beeeeeeeep…
Alright, one more time. I called back. Come on Karen, come on Karen. “If you know your party’s extension, you may dial it at…” I pressed 0. Cruelly, I didn’t even say hello when the nurse picked up this time. “I think your voicemail system is broken,” I declared, though let’s be honest, I was accusing. “Could you just take a message for me and ask the physical therapist to call me?” “I’m sorry,” she said, “but we don’t take messages. We have a voicemail system for that.” “Yes, but it’s clear your system is broken.”
Eventually, the nurse did take a message for me, but in that moment all I could think was, Karen would never have let things get this bad.
Back to my thought about tonight. What if you had had to dial in? Would it really have been much different? After all, it’s not like any of us didn’t know what we’d be getting by showing up here together. In many ways, Christmas Eve is a lot like gift buying these days. Speaking only for myself of course, because I’m sure you never do this, we hardly ever go to a store to browse for a gift anymore. We go online knowing what it is that we’re going to buy, because the person we’re getting the gift for probably told us what to buy, and where to buy it, including the color, size, and what to get instead if the item is already sold-out.
Similarly, didn’t we come out tonight knowing, even expecting, what we’d find? A church sanctuary dressed to the nines; a buzz in the air from all the kids who can’t wait to go to bed so Santa can come; Silent Night, candlelight, and the story of the birth of Jesus. Call me a fool, but couldn’t we have just dialed this one in? “If you know your party’s extension you may dial it any time. To hear the Christmas story read aloud, press 1. To hear someone announcing the birth of Jesus, press 2. To hear Silent Night, press 3. To hear these options again, press 4.”
I wonder if Mary and Joseph had the same thought when the notice came to their door saying they’d have to go to Bethlehem. Mary was already 8 months pregnant with a baby neither she nor Joseph figured on having. She might deliver any day now, and here comes Rome telling them they must go to Bethlehem. Everyone back to where you came from. It’s going to be a long, cold journey. It’s already been a long, cold journey. Mass deportation. Refugee resettlement in reverse. Sometimes, life is just cruel.
I wonder if the thought came to them again when they got back home to Bethlehem only to find, as the old story puts it, no room in the inn. What kind of homecoming is this? A home that isn’t home anymore. Sometimes, life is just cruel.
And did they have this same thought when the only place available to them was a manger fit for cows and pigs? Well, that figures. If you know your party’s extension you may dial it at any time… [trilling sound…beeeeeeeep…].
Hear me, please, I don’t mean to suggest that just because we already knew how this night was going to go that we should have just dialed it in. But let me ask you, what have you come out for? For what have you left the comforts of your own home this night? I think I know.
I think you have come because you know life can be cruel sometimes, and while there are plenty of people who will dial Christmas in this year, those who wish to have a truly merry Christmas must draw near and show themselves to be human.
One night a couple weeks ago, I went Christmas caroling with about 30 people from my church. Our last stop of the night was to see our friend Jed. Jed’s home is perched at the top of a small hill. While most of us climbed the hill to stand as close as we could to Jed’s front porch and to Jed, during the first verse of our first carol I looked out from where I was standing next to Jed to see one of the members in our group, Peg, standing alone at the bottom of the hill, leaning up against a car. She was still singing. God bless her, she was singing loud enough to make sure Jed could hear her from afar. But understandably, she didn’t want to climb the hill and risk a slip or fall.
Sometime during the singing of verse two I looked up again to find Peg, and that’s when I saw it: another member of our group, Annie, going down the hill to stand beside her. It was Annie, and there was nothing dramatic about the scene. It was ordinary, unsophisticated. As ordinary and unsophisticated as Karen answering the phone at the nursing home, now, now, how may I help you? As ordinary and unsophisticated as the sight of an old man trying to stand and walk on his own. As ordinary and unsophisticated as a poor couple looking for a room in a town with no rooms, and a baby being born among cows and pigs. As ordinary and unsophisticated as this night when we could have just dialed in for Christmas, because didn’t we already know what we’d be getting? Silent Night, candlelight, the story of the birth of Jesus.
But to those who would draw near, there is nothing ordinary and unsophisticated about this night. For in drawing near, we are saying, we will not dial in for Christmas. Rather, we will do like God and show ourselves to be human. We will be the ones who pick up the phone to say, now, now, how may I help you? We will be the ones who open our door and make room for the poor. We will be the ones who go up the hill, and down the hill, to stand beside one another. We will be the ones who, with our little light, bear the darkness. We will be the ones who, when we hear the angel say, “Unto you has been born this day a Savior,” do not keep the good news to ourselves. And therefore, we will be the ones to sing joy to the world, peace on earth, goodwill to all.
PleaseGrace 