by Max Lucado
Noises emerged from behind them.
“What is this light?” Barstow asked as he and four others hurried to help.
“An answered prayer, Charles.” Edward smiled. “Let’s get these two out of the cold.”
Richmond rode in the back of the wagon with Mr. Chumley, the mother, and the child. They covered the two with blankets. Edward sat in front with Adam. The rest of the men hurried along behind.
True to her word, Sarah had a blazing fire with which to welcome them. “She’s drifting in and out of consciousness,” Chumley told her. “Must have hit her head.”
“Let me have the baby.”
Chumley handed his wife the child, and he and Richmond carried the mother into the small parlor and seated her near the fire. Edward and Adam quickly followed. Within moments, all of Gladstone, it seemed, was in the room or on the porch.
Bea placed a warmed blanket on the girl’s shoulders. “We’ll let you rest a bit, then get you out of those wet clothes.” As of yet, no one had seen the young mother’s face. It was completely scarf-wrapped, leaving room only for a set of eyes that, Edward noticed, seemed to grow wider by the moment.
“There, there,” motherly Bea comforted, offering a cup of tea. “This will help. Let me take your wrap.”
Bea undraped the scarf as one unwraps a gift, and what Bea saw was the finest gift she could have imagined.
“Abigail!”
Edward leaned forward from the fire.
Sarah gasped.
Mr. Chumley shook his head. “It’s Abigail.”
“Abigail?” Richmond asked everyone.
“My granddaughter,” Edward explained, as he knelt by the chair and embraced his prodigal child. Bea joined him, and, for the first time in too long, the three held each other and wept.
Abigail finally pushed back. “Papa, Grandmother . . . where is my baby?”
Sara handed her the child. Abigail slipped the blanket away from the baby’s face. “I named him Edward.”
Whispers of the news and name rippled across the room and out the door to the men on the porch.
Edward looked up and searched out the eyes of Reverend Richmond. “Looks like God still gives babies at Christmas,” he winked.
“And light,” the minister agreed. “He still gives light when we need it the most.”
EPILOGUE
I know it’s dark. I should be home within an hour,” the store owner assured his wife over the phone. He stared out the window at the snow-covered cars. “But tomorrow is Sunday, and I want to take the day off. Put the baby to bed. I’ll be home soon, and we’ll finish decorating the tree. Besides, I only have four more boxes to empty.”
“Okay, dear. I’ll take care.”
He hung up and returned to the task. He cut open the cardboard and placed the candles side by side on the shelf. Each box contained different shapes, and each shape went to a different section of the store. By the time he finished, the shelves were full, and the time was well past the hour he had promised to be home.
Rather than hurry out, however, he sat at the desk to pay a few bills. “I’ll feel better getting these ready,” he justified. But he made it only halfway through the stack when he leaned over the desk and fell sound asleep on his arm.
The next thing he knew, light exploded in the room. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Ed Haddington gulped as the figure within the flame extended a finger toward one of the fat candles on the lower shelf . . .
It was an ordinary night with ordinary sheep and ordinary shepherds . . .
Then the black sky exploded with brightness. Trees that had been shadows jumped into clarity. Sheep that had been silent became a chorus of curiosity. One minute the shepherd was dead asleep, the next he was rubbing his eyes and staring into the face of an alien.
The night was ordinary no more.
The angel came in the night because that is when lights are best seen and that is when they are most needed.
The Applause of Heaven
MAYBE HE
IS THE
MESSIAH
Once there was a man whose life was one of misery. The days were cloudy, and the nights were long. Henry didn’t want to be unhappy, but he was. With the passing of the years, his life had changed. His children were grown. The neighborhood was different. The city seemed harsher.
He was unhappy. He decided to ask his minister what was wrong.
“Am I unhappy for some sin I have committed?”
“Yes,” the wise pastor replied. “You have sinned.”
“And what might that sin be?”
“Ignorance,” came the reply. “The sin of ignorance. One of your neighbors is the Messiah in disguise, and you have not seen him.”
The old man left the office stunned. “The Messiah is one of my neighbors?” He began to think whom it might be.
Tom the butcher? No, he’s too lazy. Mary, my cousin down the street? No, too much pride. Aaron the paperboy? No, too indulgent. The man was confounded. Every person he knew had defects. But one was the Messiah. He began to look for him.
He began to notice things he hadn’t seen. The grocer often carried the sacks to the cars of older ladies. Maybe he is the Messiah. The officer at the corner always had a smile for the kids. Could it be? And the young couple who’d moved next door. How kind they are to their cat. Maybe one of them . . .
With time he saw things in people he’d never seen. And with time his outlook on life began to change. The bounce returned to his step. His eyes took on a friendly sparkle. When others spoke he listened. After all, he might be listening to the Messiah. When anyone asked for help, he responded; after all this might be the Messiah needing assistance.
The change of attitude was so significant that someone asked him why he was so happy. “I don’t know,” he answered. “All I know is that things changed when I started looking for God.”
Now, that’s curious. The old man saw Jesus because he didn’t know what he looked like. The people in Jesus’s day missed him because they thought they did.
How are things looking in your neighborhood?
A Gentle Thunder
In the mystery of Christmas, we find its majesty. The mystery of how God became flesh, why he chose to come, and how much he must love his people.
Such mysteries can never be solved, just as love can never be diagrammed. Christmas is best pondered, not with logic, but imagination.
—MAX LUCADO
THE
CHRISTMAS
CHILD
FROM THE DESK OF MAX LUCADO
The first Christmas was messy. Messy with crowded inns, traveling families, and barnyard animals sniffing at baby Jesus. Messy with questions: How did Mary become pregnant? What is Joseph supposed to tell his friends? Why is Herod hell-bent on killing babies?
Contrary to the tidy crèche on the front lawn, the first Christmas was chaotic: no midwife for Mary, no bed for Jesus, no explanation to give the scruffy shepherds who show up at midnight. The first Christmas was messy.
Is this one messy for you? Too many relatives? Or too much silence? First Christmas since the cemetery? Divorce? Pink slip? Christmas can be messy.
The next story describes one. But just as with Bethlehem, good came out of the mess. May good come out of yours.
I lowered my windshield visor, both to block the afternoon sun and retrieve the photo. With one hand holding the picture and the other on the steering wheel, I inched my rental car down Main Street.
Clearwater, Texas, was ready for Christmas. The sky was bright winter blue. A breeze just crisp enough for a jacket swayed the large plastic bells hanging beneath the lamp lights. Aluminum garlands connected the power poles, and Frosty the Snowman chased his hat on the Dairy Kreem window. Even the pickup truck in front of me had a wreath hanging on its tailgate. This central Texas town was ready for Christmas. But I wasn’t.
I wanted to be back in Chicago. I wanted to be home. But things weren’t so good at home. Meg and I had fought. Weeks of suppressed
tension had exploded the day before. Same song, second verse.
“You promised to spend more time at home,” she said.
“You promised not to nag,” I replied.
She says I work too much. I say we’ve got bills to pay. She feels neglected. I feel frustrated. Finally, she told me we needed some—what was the word? Oh yeah, we needed some “space” . . . some time apart, and I agreed. I had an assignment in Dallas anyway, so why not go to Texas a few days early?
So, it was the fight with Meg that got me to Texas. But it was the photo that led me to Clearwater. My dad had received it in the mail. No return address. No letter. Just this photo: a black-and-white image of a large stone building. I could barely make out the words on the sign in front: Clearwater Lutheran Church.
Dad had no clue what the photo meant or who had sent it. We were familiar with the town, of course. Clearwater was where I was born and adopted. But we never lived there. My only previous visit had been when I was fresh out of college and curious. I had spent a day walking around asking questions, but that was twenty years ago. I hadn’t been back since. And I wouldn’t have returned now except Meg needed “space” and I could use an answer about the photo.
I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped in front of a two-story brick courthouse. Cardboard cutouts of Santa and his reindeer teetered on the lawn. I lowered my window and showed the photo to a couple of aging cowboys leaning against the side of a truck.
“Ever seen this place?” I asked.
They smiled at each other, and one cowboy spoke. “If you’ve got a strong arm, you could throw a rock from here and hit it.”
He instructed me to turn right past the courthouse and turn right again. And when I did, I saw it. The church in the photo.
My preconceived notion of a small-town church didn’t match what I was seeing. I had always imagined a small white-framed building with a simple belfry over the entrance. Something like an overgrown dollhouse. Not so, this structure. The white stone walls and tall steel roof spoke of permanence. Long wings extended to the right and left. I had expressed similar surprise when Dad first showed me the photo. But he had reminded me about the large number of German immigrants in the area—immigrants who took both their faith and their crafts seriously.
I parked in one of the diagonal spots near the church. In deference to the December chill, I put on my jacket, then grabbed my cap and gloves as I got out of the car. Tall elms canopied the wide sidewalk to the church steps. To my right was a brick sign bearing the name of the church in bronzed letters. On the left side of the church a nativity scene stood on the lawn. Although I didn’t pause to examine it, I was impressed by its quality. Like the church, it seemed sturdy and detailed. I made a mental note to examine it later.
A sudden gust of wind at my back forced me to use two hands to pull open the thick wooden doors. Organ music welcomed me as I entered. With cap and gloves in hand, I stopped in the foyer. It was empty. From the look of things, it wouldn’t be empty for long. The church had the appearance of a service about to happen. Large red and white poinsettias sat on the floor flanking the foyer doors. A guest book, open and ready to receive the names of visitors, rested on a podium. Garlands of pine looped across a large window that separated the foyer from the sanctuary.
I opened the doors and took a step inside. As I did, the volume of the organ music rose a notch. A long carpeted aisle bisected the auditorium, and a vaulted ceiling rose above it. Evening sunlight, tinted red by stained glass, cast long rectangles across the empty pews. An advent wreath hung on the pulpit, and unlit candles sat on the window sills. The only movements were those of a silver-haired woman rehearsing on the organ and an older fellow placing programs in hymnal racks. Neither noticed my entrance.
I spoke in the direction of the man. “Is there a service tonight?”
No response.
“Excuse me,” I said a little louder. “Is there a service tonight?”
He looked up at me through wire-rimmed glasses, cocked his head, and cupped a hand behind his ear.
“I said, ‘Is there a Christmas service tonight?!’” I felt awkward raising my voice in the sanctuary.
“No, we don’t need a linen service, thank you. We wash our own towels.”
I chuckled to myself, and when I did, I noticed how good it felt and how long it’d been. “No,” I repeated, walking in his direction. “I was asking about the Christmas Eve service.”
“Hold on.” He turned toward the organist. “Sarah, can you hold up for a moment? We’ve got a salesman calling on us.”
Sarah obliged, and the man looked at me again. “There now, what did you say?”
I repeated the question a fourth time.
“You planning to come?” he asked.
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Good thing God was more convicted than you.”
“What?”
“God didn’t just give it thought, you know. He did it. He came.”
Spunky, this guy. Short and square bodied. Not fat but barrel-chested. “Maintenance” was stenciled over the pocket of his gray shirt. He stepped out from the pews, walked up the aisle, and stood in front of me. As blue eyes sized me up, his stubby fingers scratched a thick crop of white hair.
“Been awhile since you’ve been in church?” His accent didn’t sound pure Texan. Midwestern, maybe? I suppose I wasn’t cloaking my discomfort too well. It had been awhile since I’d been in a church. And I did feel awkward being there, so I sidestepped the comment.
“I came because of this.” I produced the photo. He looked down through his bifocals and smiled.
“My, the trees have grown.” Looking up at me, he asked, “Where you from?”
“Chicago. I’m a journalist.”
I don’t always say that, but the old fellow seemed to be grading me, and I felt I could use a few points. If I earned any, he didn’t say.
“You ought to be home for Christmas, son.”
“Well, I’d like to, but I have an assignment and . . .”
“And your work has you out of town on Christmas Eve?”
Who are you to grill me? I started to ask, but didn’t. Instead, I picked up a worship program and looked at it. “Yeah, being home would be nice, but since I’m here I thought I’d . . .”
“Six o’clock.”
“What?”
“The service. It starts at six.” He extended a hand in my direction. “Joe’s my name. Forgive me for being nosy. It’s just that a man away from his wife . . .”
“How did you . . .”
“Your finger. I can see where your ring was. Must have been recent.”
I looked at my hand and thumbed the line. Angry at Meg, I’d stuck my wedding band in my pocket on the plane. “Yeah, recent.” I shrugged. “Listen, I’ll be back at six. I’d like to meet the pastor. I’ve got some things to do now, though,” I said, putting the program back in the hymnal rack.
“What a lie,” I mumbled to myself as I turned. I had absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to go. Joe watched me as I walked down the aisle. At least I think he did. Only when I reached the foyer did I hear him whistling and working again. As I gave the auditorium one final look, Sarah resumed her rehearsal. I turned to go outside. The wooden doors were still stubborn. I paused on the steps, put on my cap, and looked around.
Several people stepped into the corner drugstore. Last-minute shoppers, I thought. A fellow with a western hat gave me a wave as he walked past. Not far behind him a woman clutching a shopping bag of gifts in one hand and a youngster’s hand in the other scurried into the Smart Shoppe across the street. In the adjacent lot, cars encircled Happy’s Cafe. Through snow-painted windows I could see families at the tables. I sighed at the sight of them, struck by the irony of my plight. All alone forty years ago. All alone today.
I took a deep breath and started down the steps, again noticing the manger scene to my right. Curious, I headed toward it, the yellow grass cracking beneath my feet as I walk
ed.
Lowering my head, I entered the stable and studied the figures, obviously hand-carved, hand-painted. They were the largest ones I’d seen. The shepherds, though kneeling, were over two-feet tall. I was struck by the extraordinary detail of the carvings. Joseph’s beard wasn’t just painted on; it was carved into the wood. His hand, resting on the manger, was complete with knuckles and fingernails. Mary knelt on the other side, her hand brushing hair back from her forehead as she looked at her son.
One shepherd had his hand on the shoulder of another. Their faces had a leather hue and a convincing look of awe. Even the wise men were unique, one gesturing at the infant, another holding the bridle of a camel, and the third reverently placing a gift before the crib.
Two cows dozed on folded legs. A sheep and three lambs occupied the space on the other side. I bent down and ran my hand over the white, varnished back of the smallest lamb.
“You won’t find a set like this anywhere.”
Startled, I stood and bumped my head on the roof of the stable. I turned. It was Joe. He’d donned a baseball cap and jacket.
“Each figure hand-carved,” he continued, “right down to the last eyelash and hoof. Mr. Ottolman donated the manger scene to the church. It’s been the pride of the city ever since.”
“Mr. Autobahn?” I asked.
“Ottolman. A woodworker from Germany. This was his penance.”
“Penance?”
“Self-imposed. He was drunk the night his wife went into labor. So drunk he wrecked the car while driving her to the hospital. The baby survived, but the mother didn’t make it.”
I squatted down and put my hand on Mary’s face. I could feel the individual hairs of her eyebrows. Then I ran my finger across the smile on her lips.
“He spent the better part of a decade doing the work. He made a living building furniture and spent his time raising Carmen and carving these figures.”