Many years ago when I was in high school, a young man who had grown up in our church was killed in a car wreck. He was in his freshman year of college when the accident happened. Our whole church was devastated, for we were like a large family. Tom’s father had died some time before that and now his mother was all alone since her older son had moved away to go to school.
Although many of the women of the church surrounded Tom’s mother with love and attention, she had a hard time coping with her grief. She often invited the youth of our church to come to her house for a social time on Sunday evenings. We enjoyed spending time with her and we hoped that our presence was helpful to her as well.
When the Christmas season rolled around the next year, Mrs. Clark said that she was not going to put up a Christmas tree since she was all alone. Many of us encouraged her to decorate her house and be festive, but she declined. We were disappointed because we felt that, somehow, we had let her down in her grief.
Then one evening my good friend Terry, whose sister was especially close to Mrs. Clark, came to my house with a fresh Christmas tree tied to the top of his car. He hustled me out of the house saying that we were on a mission and we didn’t have much time to accomplish it. He said that his sister had taken Mrs. Clark shopping and we were supposed to “break into her house” and put up the Christmas tree before they returned home. He didn’t have to tell me twice.
I don’t remember how we got into Mrs. Clark’s house. Terry might have had a key or we may really have broken in. Anyway, we got busy and set the tree up in her front window. Terry’s sister had told him where the decorations were. We strung the lights on the tree and hung all the ornaments that we could find. We topped the tree with a lighted star and added icicles. We covered the whole tree with angel hair and turned on the lights. I had never seen a tree decorated with angel hair before, but I remember thinking how pretty it looked. Terry moved his car behind the house and we sat in the darkened living room by the lighted tree and waited.
Mrs. Clark was surprised to see the Christmas tree in her window and she was astonished to find Terry and me waiting in the living room. She cried when she comprehended what we had done. Then she laughed and swatted us with a folded up newspaper. She threatened to skin us alive, but then she said she was glad for what we had done.
Terry died fourteen years later. His sister still lives in Athens, although I haven’t seen her in years. I don’t know if Mrs. Clark is still living or not. One thing I have learned in the forty years since that night is that Christmas is about overcoming brokenness. God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Mrs. Clark, Terry, Terry’s sister, and I were bound together in God’s presence that night…and because of Christmas, we still are.
Merry Christmas!
Rev. Wayne Smith (Terry's boyhood friend)