O Tannebaum

It was a typical Christmas photo, much like those that flood our social media feeds this time of year: carefully wrapped presents and colorful gift bags sat neatly beneath the branches of an artificial evergreen tree in preparation for a Christmas party. The tree itself looked rather bare in comparison to the tinsel-laden tree in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” or the glorious thirty-foot tree at the mall, but the accompanying text unveiled its exceptional beauty in the telling of the tree’s back story.

It began on September 6 of this year, when hurricane Irma swept through the U.S. Virgin Islands. Her sister hurricane, Maria, made her own destructive visit that same month, and in their aftermath, there would be no tree, no decorations, no advent wreath for the small Salvation Army worship center. All were swept away, ruined by the hurricane’s devastating force.

Resigned to the post-Irma “new normal,” Captain Christa Bryan walked into the chapel on this past Sunday morning to finish preparations for their Christmas party. She was astonished to see a tree, standing tall, dressed lovingly with a dozen red and silver balls, a strand of lights, and one simple ornament, a mother dressed in colorful African garb, cradling a baby. Unbeknownst to the young pastors, one of their church members (who also serves as their caseworker) had snuck into the building late Saturday night, set up her own Christmas tree, finished wrapping the presents, and blessed the weary congregation with a Christmas they will always hold dear in their memories.

As I gazed at the picture of this tree as Larry drove us to Sunday worship, I was touched deeply by this story of blessing and sacrifice. While I’m not on the “a color-coordinated tree in every room” bandwagon, I still carefully unwrap the priceless (to us) ornaments each year, even the macaroni and glitter masterpieces our sons created so many years ago. I can barely imagine what it would be like to lose those memories in an instant of devastation, and then months later, be painfully reminded of that loss when it came time to decorate for Christmas.

But rather than allowing the absence of a tree to symbolize the loss this congregation faced, both individually and corporately, the caseworker redeemed the narrative through her own sacrificial gift. Hundreds of miles away, I read of her selfless action and could feel her arms stretching around her church, her people. An unexpected, extravagant gift.

And that is the story of Christmas. In the book of Ephesians, Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible describes the coming of Jesus to the world: “. . . immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he [the Father] embraced us.” Or as I sang as a child in the Quempas Carol, “God’s own son is born a child, is born a child. God the Father is reconciled, is reconciled.”

I was also struck by the presence of the one unique ornament in the center of the tree. There she was, a Madonna, a young woman in the native dress of the people of the U.S. Virgin Islands, waiting alone with a baby in her arms. The aloneness is a part of the nativity narrative we sometimes ignore. In our pageant depictions of the manger scene, there’s generally a full house in the inn that initially had no room for a laboring mother and an anxious father-to-be. Yet even though Joseph was by her side, the cattle were lowing, and the little drummer boy was on his way, Mary was alone in her astonishment, in her labor, in her birthing, and in her supernatural connection with the God of the universe, just as we, male and female, stand alone in our interaction with the divine. And yet, I was reminded again of Mary’s response to her aloneness, to the challenge before her: “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.”

As the Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) understands, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” Might you discover your own holy moment of insight as you look beyond what the eye initially sees. Merry Christmas.