It is human nature to be forgetful. We can become increasingly forgetful in the excitement of the Holidays. Children, while composing their wish-list, can be forgetful of their parents’ financial capacity. Women, in doing their Christmas shopping, can be forgetful of their credit card limits. Men can be forgetful merely because they have a bit too much of homemade “eggnog” which has in it so little eggnog, but plenty of other “drinks.”
In the excitement of the festivities, we all can become forgetful of the true meaning of Christmas. We can run the risk of reducing it to an occasion for decorating competition between houses, for mad parties, for Christmas shopping deals, for gift-exchanging, and thus forgetting the reason why we celebrate Christmas in the first place.
Perhaps this little story can serve well as a reminder,
It was Sunday, Christmas Day. Our family had spent the holiday in San Francisco with my husband’s parents, but in order for us to get back at work on Monday, we found ourselves driving the 400 miles back home to Los Angeles on Christmas Day. We stopped for lunch in King City. The restaurant was nearly empty. We were the only family, and ours were the only children. I heard Erik, my one-year-old, squeal with glee. “Hithere,” the two words he always thought were one. “Hithere,” and he pounded his fat baby hands –whack, whack, whack – on the metal high chair. His face was alive with excitement, his eyes were wide, gum bared in a toothless grin. He wriggled and giggled, and then I saw the source of his merriment. And my eyes could not take it in all at once.
A tattered rag of a coat, obviously bought by someone else eons ago, dirty, greasy, and worn; baggy pants; spindly body; toes that poked out of would-be shoes; a shirt that had ring-around-the-collar all over; and a face like none other – gums as bare as Erik’s. “Hi there, baby. Hi there, big boy, I see ya, Buster.” My husband and I exchanged a look that was a cross between “What do we do?” and “Poor devil.”
Our meal came, and the banging and noise continued. Now the old bum was shouting across the room, “Do you know patty cake? Atta boy. Do you know peek a-boo? Hey, look! He knows peek-a-boo!”
Erik continued to laugh and answer, “Hithere.” Every call was echoed. Nobody thought it was cute. The guy was a drunk and a disturbance. I was embarrassed. My husband, Dennis, was humiliated. Even our six-year-old said, “Why is that old man talking so loud?”
Dennis went to pay the check, imploring me to get Erik and meet him in the parking lot. “Lord, just let me get out of here before he speaks to me or Erik,” and I bolted for the door. It soon was obvious that both the Lord and Erik had other plans.
As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back, walking to sidestep him and any air that he might be breathing. As I did so, Erik, all the while with his eyes riveted to his best friend, leaned over my arm, reaching up with both arms in a baby’s pick-me-up position. In split-second of balancing my baby and turning to counter his weight, I came eye-to-eye with the old man.
Erik was lunging for him, arms spread wide. The bum’s eyes both asked and implored, “Would you let me hold your baby?” There was no need for me to answer since Erik propelled himself from my arms to the man. Suddenly a very old man and a very young baby consummated their love relationship.
Erik laid his tiny head upon the man’s ragged shoulder. The man’s eyes closed, and I saw tears hover beneath the lashes. His aged hands, full of grime and pain and hard labor, gently, so gently cradled my baby’s bottom and stroke his back. I stood awestruck.
The old man rocked and cradled Erik in his arms for a moment, and then his eyes opened and set squarely on mine. He said in a firm, commanding voice, “You take care of this baby.” And somehow I managed, “I will,” from a throat that contained a stone.
He pried Erik from his chest, unwillingly, longingly, as though he was in pain. I held my arms open to receive my baby, and again the gentleman addressed me: “God bless you, Ma’am. You’ve given me my Christmas gift.” I said nothing more than a mutter “thanks.”
With Erik in my arms, I ran for the car. Dennis wondered why I was crying and holding Erik so tightly. And why I was saying, “My God, forgive me. Forgive me.”
What do we celebrate during Christmas?
We celebrate the mystery of a babe, born in a manger to reach out to bums like us. We are bums in the sense that we, in our own ways, carry within ourselves the tattered rag of imperfections, the stain and dirt of sins, the pain of sadness, of wounds so deeply scarred in our hearts, and the burden of struggles and difficulties which weigh heavily down on our minds and spirits. We celebrate the mystery of a loving God who became man in the form of a baby, innocent and fragile, so that he could reach out and touch the wounds that so long have pained us. We celebrate the mystery of God became man so that man can become God (St. Augustine).
Recall those who were first announced the birth of the Savior. They were a group of shepherds. These were men who were looked down and despised by their society. These were men who were rough and hardened with struggles of life. Lowly and bum-like as they were, they were the first to whom the Word-made-flesh reached out to. He did so to show them that there is no pit so deep that his love could not reach deeper. He did so to show them that God, indeed, is with them in their most deriding conditions.
This is the joy and hope that we celebrate at Christmas: the joy of receiving such an undeserving gift of God’s love; the hope of knowing that God is with us in our struggles, our burdens, and our pains.
Perhaps, on this Christmas Eve, we should take a moment before the manger of our Lord to thank him for such amazing love he has for us. Perhaps, we should take a moment to let him reach out and touch what is so deeply hidden in our hearts. Perhaps, we should take a moment to let him embrace us, love us, and forgive us.
We rejoice; we celebrate, but, not in a shallow way of the world, rather, in knowing that a child has been born for us. He is the Emmanuel. He is God-among-man.
Merry Christmas!!!
