by Max Lucado
The scrawny boy with the tattoos had a cousin. The cousin worked the night shift at a convenience store south of Houston. For a few bucks a month, he would let the runaways stay in his apartment at night, but they had to be out during the day.
Which was fine with them. They had big plans. He was going to be a mechanic, and Madeline just knew she could get a job at a department store. Of course he knew nothing about cars, and she knew even less about getting a job—but you don’t think of things like that when you’re intoxicated on freedom.
After a couple of weeks, the cousin changed his mind. And the day he announced his decision, the boyfriend announced his. Madeline found herself facing the night with no place to sleep or hand to hold.
It was the first of many such nights.
A woman in the park told her about the homeless shelter near the bridge. For a couple of bucks she could get a bowl of soup and a cot. A couple of bucks was about all she had. She used her backpack as a pillow and jacket as a blanket. The room was so rowdy it was hard to sleep. Madeline turned her face to the wall and, for the first time in several days, thought of the whiskered face of her father as he would kiss her good night. But as her eyes began to water, she refused to cry. She pushed the memory deep inside and determined not to think about home.
She’d gone too far to go back.
The next morning the girl in the cot beside her showed her a fistful of tips she’d made from dancing on tables. “This is the last night I’ll have to stay here,” she said. “Now I can pay for my own place. They told me they are looking for another girl. You should come by.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a matchbook. “Here’s the address.”
Madeline’s stomach turned at the thought. All she could do was mumble, “I’ll think about it.”
She spent the rest of the week on the streets looking for work. At the end of the week, when it was time to pay her bill at the shelter, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the matchbook. It was all she had left.
“I won’t be staying tonight,” she said, and walked out the door.
Hunger has a way of softening convictions.
If Madeline knew anything, she knew how to dance. Her father had taught her. Now men the age of her father watched her. She didn’t rationalize it—she just didn’t think about it. Madeline simply did her work and took their dollars.
She might have never thought about it, except for the letters. The cousin brought them. Not one, or two, but a box full. All addressed to her. All from her father.
“Your old boyfriend must have squealed on you. These come two or three a week,” complained the cousin. “Give him your address.” Oh, but she couldn’t do that. He might find her.
Nor could she bear to open the envelopes. She knew what they said; he wanted her home. But if he knew what she was doing, he would not be writing.
It seemed less painful not to read them. So she didn’t. Not that week, nor the next when the cousin brought more, nor the next when he came again. She kept them in the dressing room at the club, organized according to postmark. She ran her finger over the top of each but couldn’t bring herself to open one.
Most days Madeline was able to numb the emotions. Thoughts of home and thoughts of shame were shoved into the same part of her heart. But there were occasions when the thoughts were too strong to resist.
Like the time she saw a dress in the clothing store window. A dress the same color as one her father had purchased for her. A dress that had been far too plain for her. With much reluctance she had put it on and stood with him before the mirror. “My, you are as tall as I am,” he had told her. She had stiffened at his touch.
Seeing her weary face reflected in the store window, Madeline realized she’d give a thousand dresses to feel his arm again. She left the store and resolved not to pass by it again.
In time the leaves fell and the air chilled. The mail came and the cousin complained and the stack of letters grew. Still she refused to send him an address. And she refused to read a letter.
Then a few days before Christmas Eve another letter arrived. Same shape. Same color. But this one had no postmark. And it was not delivered by the cousin. It was sitting on her dressing room table.
“A couple of days ago a big man stopped by and asked me to give this to you,” explained one of the other dancers. “Said you’d understand the message.”
“He was here?” she asked anxiously.
The woman shrugged, “Suppose he had to be.”
Madeline swallowed hard and looked at the envelope. She opened it and removed the card. “I know where you are,” it read. “I know what you do. This doesn’t change the way I feel. What I’ve said in each letter is still true.”
“But I don’t know what you’ve said,” Madeline declared. She pulled a letter from the top of the stack and read it. Then a second and a third. Each letter had the same sentence. Each sentence asked the same question.
In a matter of moments the floor was littered with paper and her face was streaked with tears.
Within an hour she was on a bus. “I just might make it in time.”
She barely did.
The relatives were starting to leave. Joe was helping grandma in the kitchen when his brother called from the suddenly quiet den. “Joe, someone is here to see you.”
Joe stepped out of the kitchen and stopped. In one hand the girl held a backpack. In the other she held a card. Joe saw the question in her eyes.
“The answer is ‘yes,’” she said to her father. “If the invitation is still good, the answer is ‘yes.’”
Joe swallowed hard. “Oh my. The invitation is good.”
And so the two danced again on Christmas Eve.
On the floor, near the door, rested a letter with Madeline’s name and her father’s request.
“Will you come home and dance with your poppa again?”
He Chose the Nails
God sent more than miracles
and messages. He sent his Son.
—MAX LUCADO
THE NORTH
POLE OR
THE MANGER?
Some call him Sinterklaas. Others Pere Noel or Papa Noel. He’s been known as Hoteiosho, Sonnerklaas, Father Christmas, Jelly Belly, and to most English speakers, Santa Claus.
His original name was Nicholas, which means victorious. He was born in ad 280 in what is now Turkey. He was orphaned at age nine when his parents died of a plague. Though many would think Santa majored in toy making and minored in marketing, actually the original Nicholas studied Greek philosophy and Christian doctrine.
He was honored by the Catholic church by being named Bishop of Myra in the early fourth century. He held the post until his death on December 6, 343.
History recognized him as a saint, but in the third century he was a bit of a troublemaker. He was twice jailed, once by the Emperor Diocletian for religious reasons, the other for slugging a fellow bishop during a fiery debate. (So much for finding out who is naughty and nice.)
Old Nick never married. But that’s not to say he wasn’t a romantic. He was best known for the kindness he showed to a poor neighbor who was unable to support his three daughters or provide the customary dowry so they could attract husbands. Old Saint Nicholas slipped up to the house by night and dropped a handful of gold coins through the window so the eldest daughter could afford to get married. He repeated this act on two other nights for the other two daughters.
This story was the seed that, watered with years, became the Santa legend. It seems that every generation adorned it with another ornament until it sparkled more than a Christmas tree.
The gift grew from a handful of coins to bags of coins. Instead of dropping them through the window, he dropped them down the chimney. And rather than land on the floor, the bags of coins landed in the girls’ stockings, which were hanging on the hearth to dry. (So that’s where all this stocking stuff started.)
The centuries have been as good to Nicholas’s image as to his deeds. Not only ha
ve his acts been embellished, his wardrobe and personality have undergone transformations as well.
As Bishop of Myra, he wore the traditional ecclesiastical robes and a mitered hat. He is known to have been slim, with a dark beard and a serious personality.
By 1300 he was wearing a white beard. By the 1800s he was depicted with a rotund belly and an ever-present basket of food over his arm. Soon came the black boots, a red cape, and a cheery stocking on his head. In the late nineteenth century his basket of food became a sack of toys. In 1866 he was small and gnomish but by 1930 he was a robust six-footer with rosy cheeks and a Coca-Cola.
Santa reflects the desires of people all over the world. With the centuries he has become the composite of what we want:
A friend who cares enough to travel a long way against all odds to bring good gifts to good people.
A sage who, though aware of each act, has a way of rewarding the good and overlooking the bad.
A friend of children, who never gets sick and never grows old.
A father who lets you sit on his lap and share your deepest desires.
Santa. The culmination of what we need in a hero. The personification of our passions. The expression of our yearnings. The fulfillment of our desires.
And . . . the betrayal of our meager expectations.
What? you say. Let me explain.
You see, Santa can’t provide what we really need. For one thing, he’s only around once a year. When January winds chill our souls, he’s history. When December’s requests become February payments, Santa’s left the mall. When April demands taxes or May brings final exams, Santa is still months from his next visit. And should July find us ill or October find us alone, we can’t go to his chair for comfort—it’s still empty. He only comes once a year.
And when he comes, though he gives much, he doesn’t take away much. He doesn’t take away the riddle of the grave, the burden of mistakes, or the anxiety of demands. He’s kind and quick and cute; but when it comes to healing hurts—don’t go to Santa.
Now, I don’t mean to be a Scrooge. I’m not wanting to slam the jolly old fellow. I am just pointing out that we people are timid when it comes to designing legends.
You’d think we could do better. You’d think that over six centuries we’d develop a hero who’d resolve those fears.
But we can’t. We have made many heroes, from King Arthur to Kennedy; Lincoln to Lindbergh; Socrates to Santa to Superman. We give it the best we can, every benefit of every doubt, every supernatural strength, and for a brief shining moment we have the hero we need— the king who can deliver Camelot. But then the truth leaks, and fact surfaces amid the fiction, and the chinks in the armor are seen. And we realize that the heroes, as noble as they may have been, as courageous as they were, were conceived in the same stained society as you and I.
Except one. There was one who claimed to come from a different place. There was one who, though he had the appearance of a man, claimed to have the origin of God. There was one who, while wearing the face of a Jew, had the image of the Creator.
Those who saw him—really saw him—knew there was something different. At his touch blind beggars saw. At his command crippled legs walked. At his embrace empty lives filled with vision.
He fed thousands with one basket. He stilled a storm with one command. He raised the dead with one proclamation. He changed lives with one request. He rerouted the history of the world with one life, lived in one country, was born in one manger, and died on one hill . . .
After three years of ministry, hundreds of miles, thousands of miracles, innumerable teachings, Jesus asks, “Who?” Jesus bids the people to ponder not what he has done but who he is.
It’s the ultimate question of the Christ: Whose son is he?
Is he the son of God or the sum of our dreams? Is he the force of creation or a figment of our imagination?
When we ask that question about Santa, the answer is the culmination of our desires. A depiction of our fondest dreams.
Not so when we ask it about Jesus. For no one could ever dream a person as incredible as he is. The idea that a virgin would be selected by God to bear himself . . . The notion that God would don a scalp and toes and two eyes . . . The thought that the King of the universe would sneeze and burp and get bit by mosquitoes . . . It’s too incredible. Too revolutionary. We would never create such a Savior. We aren’t that daring.
When we create a redeemer, we keep him safely distant in his faraway castle. We allow him only the briefest of encounters with us. We permit him to swoop in and out with his sleigh before we can draw too near. We wouldn’t ask him to take up residence in the midst of a contaminated people. In our wildest imaginings we wouldn’t conjure a king who becomes one of us.
But God did. God did what we wouldn’t dare dream. He did what we couldn’t imagine. He became a man so we could trust him. He became a sacrifice so we could know him. And he defeated death so we could follow him.
It defies logic. It is a divine insanity. A holy incredibility. Only a God beyond systems and common sense could create a plan as absurd as this. Yet it is the very impossibility of it all that makes it possible. The wildness of the story is its strongest witness.
For only a God could create a plan this mad. Only a Creator beyond the fence of logic could offer such a gift of love.
What man can’t do, God does.
So, when it comes to goodies and candy, cherub cheeks and red noses, go to the North Pole.
But when it comes to eternity, forgiveness, purpose, and truth, go to the manger. Kneel with the shepherds. Worship the God who dared to do what man dared not dream.
And the Angels Were Silent
Part II
CHRIST IS
BORN
God did something extraordinary.
Stepping from the throne, he removed his robe of light and wrapped himself in skin: pigmented, human skin. The light of the universe entered a dark, wet womb. He whom angels worship nestled himself in the placenta of a peasant, was birthed into a cold night, and then slept on cow’s hay.
Mary didn’t know whether to give him milk or give him praise, but she gave him both since he was, as near as she could figure, hungry and holy.
Joseph didn’t know whether to call him Junior or Father. But in the end he called him Jesus, since that’s what the angel had said and since he didn’t have the faintest idea what to name a God he could cradle in his arms . . .
In the Grip of Grace
GABRIEL’S
QUESTIONS
Gabriel must have scratched his head at this one.
He wasn’t one to question his God-given missions. Sending fire and dividing seas were all in an eternity’s work for this angel. When God sent, Gabriel went.
And when word got out that God was to become man, Gabriel was enthused. He could envision the moment:
The Messiah in a blazing chariot.
The King descending on a fiery cloud.
An explosion of light from which the Messiah would emerge.
That’s what he expected. What he never expected, however, was what he got: a slip of paper with a Nazarene address. “God will become a baby,” it read. “Tell the mother to name the child Jesus. And tell her not to be afraid.”
Gabriel was never one to question, but this time he had to wonder.
God will become a baby? Gabriel had seen babies before. He had been platoon leader on the bulrush operation. He remembered what little Moses looked like.
That’s okay for humans, he thought to himself. But God?
The heavens can’t contain him; how could a body? Besides, have you seen what comes out of those babies? Hardly befitting for the Creator of the universe. Babies must be carried and fed, bounced and bathed. To imagine some mother burping God on her shoulder— why, that was beyond what even an angel could imagine.
And what of this name—what was it—Jesus? Such a common name. There’s a Jesus in every cul-de-sac. Come on, even Gabriel has more punch to it than
Jesus. Call the baby Eminence or Majesty or Heaven-sent. Anything but Jesus.
So Gabriel scratched his head. What happened to the good ol’ days? The Sodom and Gomorrah stuff. Flooding the globe. Flaming swords. That’s the action he liked.
But Gabriel had his orders. Take the message to Mary. Must be a special girl, he assumed as he traveled. But Gabriel was in for another shock. One peek told him Mary was no queen. The mother-to-be of God was not regal. She was a Jewish peasant who’d barely outgrown her acne and had a crush on a guy named Joe.
And speaking of Joe—what does this fellow know? Might as well be a weaver in Spain or a cobbler in Greece. He’s a carpenter. Look at him over there, sawdust in his beard and nail apron around his waist. You’re telling me God is going to have dinner every night with him? You’re telling me the source of wisdom is going to call this guy “Dad”? You’re telling me a common laborer is going to be charged with giving food to God?
What if he gets laid off?
What if he gets cranky?
What if he decides to run off with a pretty young girl from down the street? Then where will we be?
It was all Gabriel could do to keep from turning back. “This is a peculiar idea you have, God,” he must have muttered to himself.
Are God’s guardians given to such musings?
Are we?
When God Whispers Your Name
God loved us too much
to leave us alone.
—MAX LUCADO
THE NIGHT
IN THE STABLE
Matthew describes Jesus’s earthly father as a craftsman (Matt. 13:55). A small-town carpenter, he lives in Nazareth: a single-camel map dot on the edge of boredom. Is he the right choice? Doesn’t God have better options? An eloquent priest from Jerusalem or a scholar from the Pharisees? Why Joseph? A major part of the answer lies in his reputation: he gives it up for Jesus. “Then Joseph [Mary’s] husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly” (Matt. 1:19 NKJV).