Each
year something sticks in my mind from Christmas. Sometimes it’s Christmas
lights, sometimes it’s something I read; other times it’s a particular person.
A few years ago when I lived in Kansas, I thought I was doomed to remember what
I call “the struggling Santa.” I was driving to the place where I exercised,
and the place next door had one of those giant blow-up figures of Santa
tethered on the front lawn. I’ve never quite understood the popularity of those
figures in Kansas. Oklahomans seem to understand there’s too much wind for
those giant character balloons to be effective, but not Kansas.
At any
rate, here was poor old Santa, with half his air missing, which made him pretty
saggy. Not only that, he’d been tethered at the top of a little rise in the
person’s yard; so after he lost his air he’d slipped down the rise. All I could
see was the top of Santa’s head and his two arms sticking straight out. Not up,
but out. As the wind caught him, it looked as though he was struggling to stand
up. Up and down, up and down, he bobbed. And I thought of everyone I knew who
was struggling to get back up. Struggling against the force of gravity, the
force of sorrow, the force of events in their lives. Amusing as poor old
Santa’s struggle was, that was what I thought.
That night
when I arrived home, something changed. Instead of poor old Santa struggling to
get back up, a Christmas card replaced him. It came in the form of three
photographs of a friend’s grandson.
My friend’s
grandson wasn’t supposed to live. He was born with only half a heart. He’d
already had three surgeries and spent a lot of time in a specialty hospital.
And here in these photographs was this little two-year old guy, with his blonde
hair and his beaming smile. In one of the photos he’s standing on top of a
quilt, smiling. In the second photo he’s bending over to get a close look at
the quilt. And in the third photo he’s fast asleep under the quilt, with the
label turned up so you can read what it says. The label on the quilt reads “The
Heart of the Matter” and it’s his prayer quilt.
It’s a big
warm, brightly colored, cuddly flannel quilt that was made for him. The quilter
stitched away at it most of 2004 and much of 2005 as well. You see, the family
knew before he was born that he had this condition and would have to have
surgery. And everyone knew the odds for the outcome were not good.
That
little guy is a miracle baby. That’s what his parents and his grammies call
him. They call him that because many of the other children born with his same
condition died.
Yet the
“heart of the matter” for this little guy, and for all of us, is what we find
in today’s gospel. The angel in St Luke’s gospel tells the shepherds, “I am
bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day
in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a
sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a
manger.”[1]
That is the
heart of Christmas, of the birth of Christ. That God became a child, just like that
little child with only half a heart. God became a child of bone and flesh and
blood, living among us. A child that cried and laughed and ate and drank and
sighed and sang and sorrowed. A child that grew up to be a man who knows both
the sorrows and joys we know. That child was flesh: Emmanuel, God with us,
and nothing was ever the same.
This
is a God is who is present in joy with the parents of the little miracle boy. This
is the same God who is present in the sorrow of the parents whose babies died.
Because this Jesus, born this day in the city of David, is the one who comes
among us as both human and divine. This is the Son of God who knows us in our
crying and our laughing, in our eating and drinking, in our sighing, our
singing, and our sorrowing. This is the heart of Christmas. That God
became flesh and dwelt among us, and nothing is ever the same. He bears
our burdens and shares our sorrows. He is present in the bread we eat and the
cup we drink. He is present among us wherever two or three are gathered in his
name. But most of all, Christ is here. This is the heart of the matter. This
is the heart of Christmas. AMEN.
The Rev Nicolette Papanek
©2016
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