Christmas Eve
Edna Hong’s book, Bright Valley of Love, is the true story of a physically challenged child who found a haven of love. Gunther was born near the end of World War I. His father was away at war. His mother would not care for him because he was deformed suffering from a severe case of Rickets. His grandmother, who begrudgingly took him in, hated him and was embarrassed by his deformity. She kept him locked up, out of sight and away from people. No one talked to him. No one answered his cries. They merely changed him and fed him when it was convenient. At age six he couldn’t talk and his deformity, which increased in severity due to lack of sunshine and milk, prevented him from walking.
His father met and married a new wife. When she refused to have anything to do with Gunther, the grandmother insisted he be institutionalized. They left him at Bethel, a Christian home for epileptics as well as physically and mentally challenged youth.
With the loving care of the staff and with the help of an epileptic roommate, named Kurt, Gunther began to learn how to talk and thus began to learn about life. It was Kurt who told Gunther about Christmas. The story of Jesus’ birth and the love of God filled Gunther with joy. But there was something else that filled him with fear - little Kurt was getting worse. In fact, he told Gunther one night that he would soon be going to his heavenly home, maybe as early as Christmas time.
On the first Sunday of Advent, when Pastor Fritz began their Advent service, the joy and excitement of the day wiped out his fear. When the moment came for the Advent candle to be lit, little Kurt was chosen to do the honors. The children watched expectantly as Kurt took the small lighted candle and leaned toward the unlighted candle of the Advent wreath. But suddenly, the burning candle dropped. A moan burst from Kurt’s lips and his body writhed in spasm after spasm of an epileptic seizure. One of the nurses quickly took him in her arms and left the room. Pastor Fritz rescued the cracked, but still burning candle and lit the wreath, singing as he did so. The staff and children joined in until a shrill cry emerged from the heart of Gunther’s fear. The song stopped and Gunther screamed, “There’s a crack in everything.”
Every face in the room turned and looked at Gunther, but Gunther looked only at one face, the face of Pastor Fritz. Once again he flung his wild desperate complaint against that face saying, “There is a crack in everything!” And then he added, “What is so great about Christmas?”
The silence of the room ached with Gunther’s pain. Finally, Pastor Fritz turned from Gunther and appealed to the children saying, “Gunther needs to know what is so great about Christmas. Will you help me tell him please?”
Manford, a child with a mind for mathematics said, “Christmas comes in December. December is the 12th Month. Christmas comes on the 25th day. The 25th day of the 12 month.” “So it does,” said Pastor Fritz. “Thank you, Manford.”
Monika jumped to her feet, beamed at Pastor Fritz and spoke the only words in her vocabulary, “Alleluia, Oh Susanna!” And then she sat down.
“Thank you, Monica.” Said the pastor. “Can anyone else tell Gunther what is so great about Christmas?”
Petra, the oldest of the patients there, but with a mental age of only five said, “Christmas is so great ‘cause then God sent his son, Jesus our Savior.”
Pastor Fritz said, “That’s true, Petra. Thank you. But why? Children, why did God send his son to be our Savior?”
Finally, Leni climbed form her chair to the table top and shouted, ‘Because. Because everything has a crack!”
Pastor Fritz said, “It is true, Gunther, that there is a crack in everything. God sees the crack better than we do, and the crack is ever so much worse than we think it is. That is why God sent his son. Not to patch up the crack. But to make everything new. That is why Christmas is so great!”
I know some of you have experienced the cracks in life and when they occur at Christmas those cracks can shatter us. Some of you have shared your pain with me and part of that pain comes from the same source as Gunther’s. And we may ask with Gunther, “What is so great about Christmas?” Or “What is so great about God, if this awful thing can happen to me?”
Gunther was losing his friend, Kurt, to death.
Some of you have loved ones who are dying.
Others have friends and relatives who are seriously ill.
Others feel they are losing their relationship with their spouse or their child.
Still others are having personal problems. They are struggling with depression or lack of direction or feelings of low self-esteem.
When those problems pervade our lives there does seem to be a crack in everything and nothing seems whole and good.
Even if we aren’t experience personal problems, we can’t help but see the crevices.
Because of the fighting in Israel, Christmas won’t be celebrated this year in Bethlehem Square.
Here in this country, we can’t seem to elect a president without court cases and controversy.
Here in Minnesota, sixteen thousand people are homeless and 1000 of them will sleep outside in the cold tonight.
There is a crack between the rich and the poor in this nation, but even more so in the world. And the gap grows and with it the threat that the world may crumble from those kinds of cracks.
Some of us may ask with Gunther, “What is so great about Christmas?” And the answer remains the same. Christmas is great because that is when Christ came to be our savior and he came precisely because there is a crack in everything. He doesn’t cover over our cracks and make things look OK. He comes to make everything new. Without him we would eventually fall apart. The cracks would grow and spread until we and our world literally crumbled. But with Christ we can keep it together. With Christ we know there is comfort and strength. With Christ our relationships can be reconciled.
In the book, “Children’s Letters to God: The New Collection”, a little girl named, Nan, writes this letter: “Dear God, I bet it is very hard for you to love all of everybody in the whole world. There are only four people in our family and I have trouble loving them!”
Sometimes we have trouble loving family members. Sometimes we have trouble loving neighbors. Sometimes we have trouble loving people of different races or skin colors.
Sometimes we have trouble loving ourselves.
There is a crack in everything, but Christ came because of the cracks. When confronted with the cracks, a shrill cry of fear emerges from the heart of our fear, but Christ comes to quell those fears and to comfort us. He comes to make all things new. He comes to show us just how much God really loves us and how much God wants a relationship with us.
A housewife was washing dishes. She looked at one particular plate and asked, “How many times have I washed this plate?” Then she set down the plate, took off her apron, packed a few of her belongings, and left. That night she called home to tell her husband that she was all right, but that she just could not come home again. Sometimes, when she would call home to check on the children, her husband would tell her how much he loved her and ask her to come home. But each time she refused. The husband hired a detective to search for her. The detective learned that she was living in a second class hotel in a distant city. The husband took a bus to find her. When he knocked on the door of her room, his hands trembled because he did not know the kind of reception he would receive. His wife opened the door, stood for a moment in shocked silence, then fell into his arms. Later, at home, he asked her, “When you would call before, I would tell you how much I love you. Why didn’t you come home?” She replied, “Before, your love was just words. Now I know how much you love me because you came to me.”
It can be said that the prophets of the Bible tried to tell us about God’s love, we never really got the message until God came to us. He broke into history and became one of us, and as one of us, showed us His love. He came to heal the cracks and make all things new.
The crack in our relationship with God was so large it was insurmountable and our attempts to reach God would only cause us to fall into the fissure separating us. But Christ came and made that relationship whole again. He came to tell us in a way that words could never communicate, that God loves us. He came to save us from the cracks and crevices of life and give us a real relationship with God.
Illness is a crack that confronts us. When we are ill we are no longer whole. We are unable to do what we want to do. Christ comes as the great healer. While he may not cure every cancer or eliminate every disease, he can enable us to live with our illness and he gives us the strength to endure.
Cracks in our relationships can hurt as much as if they were cracks in our bones. The pain of problems in the family can break up our whole world. Feeling separated and cut off from our husband or wife, other family members or friends can fill us with loneliness. But Christ came to reconcile relationships. He came to announce to us that we are loved and forgiven and to empower us to love and forgive. Maybe God won’t magically put our marriage or other relationships back together, but Christ can enable us to let go of our anger and resentment and our need for revenge.
Death is the colossal crack. It breaks, crushes, shatters and eliminates life. And yet Christ came to offer us new life. His birth brings us to a new birth. His resurrection gives us the promise of everlasting life. Death has been defeated by this babe born in Bethlehem. While we will still die, Christ came to give us an eternal life with him and to let us know that we and our loved ones are safe in his hands.
That is what is so great about Christmas. Our question is answered, our painful cry is quelled, our fear is comforted by the Good news of Christ born at Christmas. He doesn’t come to eliminate all our pain, solve all our problems, heal all our diseases or put an end to death.
But he comes to be God with us.
He comes to share our pain and ease it with his presence.
He comes to us in the midst of our problems and gives us the strength to deal with them.
He comes to help us endure our illnesses and to know wholeness in him.
He comes to overcome death and to give us new life.
Gunther overcame the cracks. He learned to walk and talk and communicate. He became a poet and shared the love that was shown to him by the people at Bethel.
With the love of Christ we can over come the cracks too. For Christ, who came at Christmas, brings us the comfort, joy, and peace that found in knowing there is a God who loves us enough to be one of us and to be with us and that as God, Christ is powerful enough to conquer all the cracks. Amen.
