The season between Thanksgiving and New Years is one of my favorite times of the year. It is sort of an extended Christmas for me. We begin with our Christmas celebration at my parents with the siblings and all of their children, and their children’s children. Then I take a relaxed approach to preparation since, for the month of December, I usually have less than half the number of sermons to prepare. I use that time to reflect and to plan for the coming year. As I said, it is one of my favorite times of the year.
This year, has been a reality check in many ways. For the first time in years, all of my siblings would not be at our Christmas at Thanksgiving Celebration at my parents. Then, I received word that a dear friend’s health was failing quickly. Top that with my youngest daughter’s health being undiagnosed, and another hospital stay. One dear saint who always had a word of love and support went home to Jesus on a Thursday, and then our friend passed away early the following Sunday morning. It was a busy week with many other things taking place and the day of one funeral brought news that a special young lady for whom I had performed her wedding 12 years earlier had passed away leaving her husband and a nine year old and a five year old. I would need to travel out of town to officiate at the graveside.
Needless to say, when the week of Christmas rolled around, all we had done in preparation for our traditional Christmas was place an undecorated evergreen in the corner of our family room. No presents purchased, no decorations. . . just a bare tree.
We were hoping for a special Christmas, since our oldest son is scheduled for boot camp March 1st, and our second son the Marine Corps and Paris Island January 19, not to mention a trip to Israel Jan 2-13. Not much time when I return and every day precious to spend with the “boys.” I made the mistake of telling the MSGT that I thought my son would make a good soldier. My son interrupted and said, “Marine Dad, not a soldier, a Marine.” It is hard to imagine him away—five years active duty. Life is certainly changing. This would not be like previous Christmases.
This morning my wife and I awoke earlier than the rest and began to prepare the Christmas meal when the phone rang. A young man said, “Pastor, I hate to call you on Christmas Day, but can you come up to Johnson City Medical Center? My Dad had an brain aneurism and isn’t going to make it.”
My wife woke the family and brought them into the family room where we read the Christmas story from Luke 2, and exchanged the fewest Christmas presents we have had since children had blessed our family.
Leaving the rest of the Christmas meal preparation with my wife, I got in the car and headed out for the hospital, Christmas Carols on the radio. I passed all of the businesses closed for the day. Few cars were on the road. I thought, I wonder if this is what it will look like after the rapture? No, not enough people left behind. Then I passed Waffle House. It was opened and jam-packed. I wondered why all of those people were there instead of home with family enjoying a day of feasting. Was this their normal Christmas, or had they gone through a Christmas season that forever changed their celebration of the day.
I arrived at the hospital and heard the story of how this dear man who had been blind was attending his nephews funeral yesterday when the aneurism burst. I thought of the last conversation I had had with him. Each week his wife or son would lead him into the worship center where he would sit one row from the back center, bottom section. He loved the messages from Revelation. A few weeks ago, he told me how much he longed to be home with Jesus.
We had a time of comfort from the Scripture and then went to ICU where only the ventilator was keeping him alive. As the dear family gathered with me around the bedside, I asked them their plans. They said, “that is one of the reasons we wanted you to come. We must decide when to take him off the machine. There is no chance for him to survive and the Dr. wants us to make that decision.”
We talked about proceeding or waiting and what it would be like for future Christmases if he were to go to heaven on Christmas day. Then the sweet wife said, what better Christmas present for him than to go to heaven on Christmas Day.
It was all this preacher could do to keep it together. This Christmas has surely been different. I don’t know that they will ever be the same again This year, so many deaths, so much hurt, so much sickness, two sons leaving for military service. Then this preacher got a great Christmas lesson. This is why the baby was born. He was born so that we might have life, and life eternal. Death is not the end, it is the great gift of eternity—the reason the baby was born.
I sat in the car for a moment in silence. I called home to tell my wife to put dinner in the oven, I was headed home. She said, “By the way, I’ve invited a couple over who were going to eat left-overs.” I wanted to share the Christmas meal with friends.
From now on, Christmas will be different for me.
