The Sunday After Christmas: Another Christmas Miracle

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The Sunday After Christmas

'Twas the day after Christmas and the phone rang. A vacationing pastor answers the phone with great fear and trembling.

"Hi, it's Marilyn. Do I have news."
"Hi, Marilyn. What's up?"
"A true Christmas miracle."
"Okay."

There is uncertainty in the thoughts going through the mind. Miracles seem to be everywhere at Christmas. Everyone sees them. Everyone wants one. The only time of the year when we actually, truly look for them. The rest of the year a miracle can hit us in the head and we'll think the sky is falling. At Christmas the ordinary becomes miraculous.

"This was really something. Christmas Eve the door opened and in walked my oldest son, followed by my daughter. They haven't spoken in thirty years."

My mind shot back to the story on Christmas Eve. It was about connections and family and roots. It was about the people we touch and who touch us as we pilgrimage through life. But I didn't mean it like this.

When Christmas becomes real, it is hard to admit and accept. We're just too cynical most of the time. We're just too unable to accept the wonders of God's life and promise. Yet, right here it was, on the phone.

"I just had to share this with you. It was much too good to keep to myself."

Connections. The church becomes the place to share. The church becomes the community of connections. I hardly know Marilyn's children. They are grown and gone from the home and have found another church home for themselves. I think I met them once at a funeral, naturally. But Marilyn has to share it with me. She HAD to call someone else.

It makes my Christmas. I know that sounds like the typically mushy response. But it does make my Christmas because I am connected. It isn't the same, of course, as if it had been a close relative who has been out of touch for years. It won't make or break the day for me. But it does restore the faith in Christmas miracles. Even for a pastor who is always talking about then, always wondering where the next one is coming from.

Until it comes.

What is a miracle but the ordinary seen from a different light. What is a miracle but a baby born again this year, a relationship renewed, a connection repaired. What is a miracle but simply seeing the work of God and knowing that it is the work of God.

I have a friend who, when asked if he believes in miracles responds, "Believe in them? Why, I depend on them." I want to argue with him, too. I want to say that he is putting too much stock in miracles and God doing for him what he should be able to do for himself. But I stop short everytime he tells me. I stop short because I know the statement is true. I just don't like to admit it for myself. If I depend on miracles, what is there left for me to do? If I depend on miracles how will I maintain control over my life?

So a baby is born and I didn't have anything to do with it. So a star appears in the heavens and I stand in awe. So a family is reconnected after years of discord and all I can do is answer the phone on a December morning and know that Christmas has done it again.