Christmas Card 2009 - The Christmas Hug

This is the season of Advent. It’s a peculiar time in the church calendar because although it marks the beginning of the church year, the lectionary readings assigned to Advent for the first two weeks focus on Christ’s second coming, and then morphs into anticipation of his birth. The Feast of Christ the King celebrating Christ as the all triumphant King of the universe, falls on the last Sunday of the liturgical year, right before Advent. The Advent readings almost act as an epilogue to the church year looking at the end times, and the origin of times. I am the Alpha and Omega…

Included in the story mix of end times and Old Testament Messiah prophecies, we hear the story of John the Baptist, Matthew’s voice in the wilderness. This leads, in turn, to many ministries using this as a teachable moment, a time for new baptisms and baptism reaffirmation by those already baptized.

This past Sunday, my church did just that. The baptismal font is set up right in front of the altar so all can welcome the newest member of the Christian family into the faith. Except for some adjustments to accommodate the baptism, the rest of service proceeds as normal, including the children’s sermon. God says suffer the little children unto me, and we suffered the little kidders right up to the front of the church to gather 'round our pastor as he tried to phrase the day’s message in terms the children, and probably a good part of the congregation (including myself), might understand. That is a daunting task indeed.

So Pastor Dave sat the kids around the baptismal font, and explained to them the mysteries of baptism and God’s unconditional love. Then, to allow the young ones to "feel" the baptism that is about to come, he invited all of them to dip their little hands into the baptismal font and get those hands wet. He next told them to take the water and make the Sign of the Cross on their foreheads.

It was chaos around the baptismal font, with all those teeny tiny Lutherans dipping their hands into the water, splashing around, then trying to make like Catholics making the cross on their foreheads; except for one little girl standing off to the side all by herself. She looked skeptical, almost fearful. She was small, but her hands would have reached the font. Standing next to her was her older brother, gently urging her to join the other children. She defiantly shook her head no.

As the kids moved away from the font back to the pews to sit with their parents, Pastor Dave asked her:”Honey, don’t you want to put your hand in the water?” “No!” she firmly replied. Pastor Dave thought a bit and said: “How about this? Would it be okay if your brother puts his hand in the font and makes the cross on your forehead for you?” She meekly indicated her approval. The brother went up to the font, dipped his hand in the water, and knelt down in front of his sister and did just that.

As her brother got up to go back to his seat, the little girl chased after him, grabbled him around the waist and gave him the biggest hug you could ever imagine, squeezing him as tightly as her tiny arms would allow. There was dead silence in the church.

God was in my church last Sunday. As we dealt with the weighty issues of Christ as King of the Universe; Christ as the arbiter of justice in the end times; Christ as the prophesied Messiah and baby in Bethlehem…in Zion Lutheran Church last Sunday, Christ shared his love in the form of a simple hug between a little girl and her big brother.

That little girl's Christmas hug was an early Christmas present to all of us…Merry Christmas.