Chaplain's Corner

Tis “the night before Christmas”, folklore would have us believe that Christmas Eve is a time full of excitement and anticipation combined with quiet, sacredness. But there’s something about folklore, the “once upon a time…” tales where everything “ends happily ever after” that keep us hoping; but our realities are so often, so different.

In the world of hospitals and personal care homes, the night before Christmas may be pretty much like most nights. Oh, the staff will have decorated to some extent stocked the staff room with chocolate and baking and hope out loud for a quiet night. Most will wish they were home with the family. In the rooms that line the hallways lie patients who are sick, recovery from surgery or an accident, some will be dying. Families will be with some, others all alone.

In the personal care home many will be in bed and asleep by 7 p.m. others will be living in their daily befuddlement caused by dementia and some will be bedridden, on death’s wait list, longing for their turn.

But all is not fairy-tale like in the community either. Some will go off to a Christmas Eve service, others a party where they drink too much, others will sit alone at home and watch some tired Christmas special on TV. In the same community some will have no home, they will spend the night trying to keep warm and their spirits will be embittered by their loneliness, despair and inability to see any hope.

Tis “the night before Christmas”, and more will think about Santa Claus than Jesus Christ. Many who sing or play the familiar carols will not believe or give conscious thought to the words. A growing number in our culture have adopted only the secular aspects of the holiday for they embrace other Faith traditions or no Faith tradition at all.

What about your “night before Christmas”? Should we expect much more than those who were there on that first night before Christmas? Mary and Joseph had traveled all day but they got into Bethlehem late. There wasn’t a room to be found in town. They were tired, hungry and dusty from the day’s long walk. Mary was weary from a daylong donkey ride; we mustn’t forget she was nine months pregnant. They were young, probably still teenagers, marriage happened much earlier in those days.

To top it off, Mary went into labor, no hospital, no midwife, just her young husband in a stable. To top it off, after the baby was born a rag tag bunch of shepherds showed up telling their tale of angels singing in the sky and directions to find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

Tis “the night before Christmas”‘ our minds are pushed in so many directions, we wrestle with our cultures expectations, our spiritual traditions and our own deep longings; no wonder, if we were to be honest, Christmas is such a letdown. Maybe we should all take a deep breath, quiet our hearts and do what the Christmas carol “Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne” suggests. In the quietness or the noise of your night before Christmas look toward the heavens and pray, “O come to my heart, Lord Jesus, There is room in my heart for Thee.”

Those who can do this will find that “the night before Christmas” can be a wonderfully sacred time in which the brightest moment in human history, the birth of the Savior, puts everything else into perspective as we capture for the first time, or maybe another time that eternal truth that God loves each of us so he gave his only son to be born for the purpose of saving us from our sin. “O come to my heart Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for Thee.”