"May You Know..."

 Today is Christmas Eve as I am writing this.  The day is foggy and warm for this time of the  year.  The sun is trying to break through the gloom, and according to the weather people will eventually do so later today.

I have come in to work today to wrap up a few things before the holiday.  The traffic on the street is much lighter this morning, and the portion of the parking lot we lease to our next door neighbor is only about one third filled.  I plan to be here for a few hours, then head on home for the rest of the day.  We are planning on Scott and family to be with us this evening, so I need to get ready for that…which means I need to nap this afternoon.  It's tough being semi-retired, but someone’s gotta do it.

When I pulled into the parking lot of the church, I parked and rather than come into the office, decided to walk to the nearby pharmacy and the downtown post office.  The wife had a prescription I needed to pick up, and we needed stamps at home for the four or five mailings a month that we normally do.

I stopped at the post office first.  It was a very slow day there…I was first in line.  I chose some stamp sheets, paid, and headed to the pharmacy a block or so farther down the street.

The pharmacy was pretty much like the post office…not very busy.  I got right to a clerk.  The medication I was getting was for the wife and was one of the more expensive medicines.  A month of this medication with insurance is almost a hundred forty dollars.

The clerk found the medication and rang up the charges.  I tapped my debit card, entered my PIN, and completed the transaction.

I didn’t think about it at the time, but after I was back on the street walking back to the church, I thought about how easy it was to pay for the medication.  I never gave it a second thought…I knew we had the money in the checking account that is attached to the debit card.  I also knew that we would not need the money for anything else right now.

Then I thought of some of those who I encounter and visit with as a minister.  I do the benevolence at the church, and regularly encounter folks who need help with basic needs…food, transportation, utilities, clothing.  Sometimes, we can help.  Sometimes for whatever reason, we can’t.

I still struggle, even after doing this for more than a decade, to understand just how much as little as twenty dollars in benevolent help means to some of the people I visit with. 

A tank of fuel for a vehicle.  A sack of groceries from our food pantry.  Paying the past due part of an electric bill.  Things I take for granted.  Things I can get or do any time.  Things I don’t even have to think about whether or not I can afford them.  What a blessing it is to not have to worry about such things.

I’ve told you before, I’ve seen grown men and women just crater into an emotional puddle in my office when they were told that a utility bill would be paid, or they were handed a gift card for groceries.  In fact, that response is not at all unusual.  Actually, it’s one of the more satisfying parts of what we do here…to see some of the incredible stress and fear these people deal with pretty much constantly…melt away, even if for a short time.

I also thought about a young couple who had just had their first child.  Far from home.  Very little in resources.  No doctor.  No hospital.  No warm, comfortable place to stay.  Instead, they found refuge in a barn.  She delivered her first child there.

And had it not been, some time later on, for the generosity of strangers from a place far in the East, this young family may well have not remained intact, because they had to flee to a foreign nation to avoid the paranoia and terror of the local governor.  And they had to have resources…those gifts brought by those men from the East…to be able to do that.

So today and tomorrow, as you bask in the warmth of family, friends, and the joy of giving and receiving, remember the young couple who gave birth to God Incarnate in a barn in a backwater village in a part of the world barely tolerated by the government of the time.

May you know the joy of generosity…the blessing of giving…the beauty of kindness…the humanity of loving your neighbor…the divinity of knowing Jesus Christ.