My life for the last couple of weeks has been overshadowed by the Big Event. Playing brass music for the local university’s Christmas service is still cause for nervousness and stress in this veteran of almost forty years of the program. But, that’s all over now.
I expected to write about it today. I sat down to do just that, but it seems the story doesn’t want to be the subject of my mental wanderings just yet.
Instead, I want to talk with you about children. Babies. Toddlers. Teenagers. Ninety-year-olds.
All children.
Why are you wrinkling up your forehead like that?
Oh. Ninety-year-old children. I know. We’ll get to that soon enough.
Sunday night, a day after the Big Event was over, the old guys (and one young lady) in the brass ensemble played one last time, this event—my church’s annual Christmas program. Everyone was welcome to share what they had prepared. No pressure. Encouragement and approval for every performer, young and old, was guaranteed.
I had my worst outing of the whole season, missing more than my share of notes, but heard not one word of criticism. I expected nothing less from this joyful crowd. But what my ensemble did really wasn’t noteworthy on this night.
The beautiful little girl whose sisters were singing a duet was. She added to the music with her lovely dancing on the stage. Mama was worried she’d jostle the guitar-playing sister’s arm, but she was careful not to, pirouetting and flouncing in her own space. Her face beamed as she offered her talent to the Baby King.
There were so many others; there is not enough room here and you don’t have the patience for me to mention them all. The stage filled with kids in the pageant; a few shy beyond showing their faces, others standing on the steps and waving to the crowd. One after another, they brought their gifts, some flawed, some nearly perfect. All were met with approval from the folks who listened and watched.
Piano duets and solos soared—or limped—through all the notes. Vocal offerings followed the same pattern. Joyous applause was the inevitable result.
Ah, but look! The red-headed young man mounts the steps to the stage and, brushing the shock of hair from his forehead, begins a difficult arrangement of Rise Up Shepherds and Follow at the piano.
The jazz-voiced chords are difficult to shape the hands to and the arpeggios from bass to treble and back again require exact positioning of the fingers. There are some starts and stops along the way, but it is all brought to a triumphant ending, and with a flourish, the last note rings out from the big concert grand piano.
With a joyful thumbs-up to the whistling and cheering crowd, the young man strides to the steps, a grin affixed, permanently it would seem, to his lips.
His friend would follow a few moments later, as he and his dad offered up their version of Little Drummer Boy. Dad, with his guitar, sang each verse from the stage, while his son, smiling broadly the entire time, marched up and down each aisle tapping his sticks on a small drum hanging by a cord around his neck. As the song neared an end, the young man mounted the steps and stood, still striking the drum, behind his dad.
It might have been just a little bit of laughter in his dad’s voice that caused his voice to break (but I think there was more to it) when the words “then He smiled at me” came from his mouth. The young man was beaming from ear to ear himself. He didn’t stop beaming as he bowed from the waist, not once, but three times to the thunderous applause.
The two young men are friends and peers. Both have Down syndrome but are ever anxious to learn and share new things. Their joy is contagious; our desire to encourage them in it, completely understandable.
Christmas is for children. I’ve heard it again and again. I have always—in the past, anyway—disagreed.
Well? Surely, it’s obvious. The Christmas story is for all the world. The Gospel of Grace is freely offered to all who come to the God-who-became-a-baby.
Adults. Children. Teenagers.
Christmas is for all. It’s more than presents and carols; more than candy canes and decorations; more than tales of Santa Claus and of talking snowmen. It is.
So much more.
But—and I can’t get past this—our God began His rescue mission as a baby in a manger. He was helpless and dependent. Our Savior.
God came as a child.
And, when the child became a man, He shocked His followers by telling them the only way they could come to His Father was as children. Helpless and dependent. Lost.
Lost.
I’ve forgotten something.
Oh yes. Her. I didn’t really. Forget her, I mean. It’s just that there is pain. And tears.
But there is joy too. So much.
She climbed the steps carrying a violin. Helped by an older man, she ambled over to the piano where the Lovely Lady who lives at my house waited. Leaning over, clearly confused, she handed the violin and bow to the beautiful redhead. A bit confused herself, the pianist talked to her for a moment to reassure her, then handed the violin back to her.
There were notes from the piano and a tone drawn timorously from the violin. Then, as the piano began to play the first notes of Joy to the World, the melody also flowed from the violin. It wasn’t perfect. It didn’t matter.
When the last notes faded down to nothingness, the crowd cheered and applauded louder than ever. I wiped the tears and smiled at the Lovely Lady as she returned to her seat beside me.
Christmas is for children.
The violinist has lived nine decades. She was recognized for many years in our fellowship as a wise woman, a source of advice and wisdom for many young mothers and middle-aged empty nesters. The love and respect she knew from all were well deserved. And she reciprocated those qualities many times over.
For the last several years, we’ve watched her change as an illness has robbed her of memory and wisdom. She still beams as I greet her, but my name is not on her lips anymore. That kind nature has not been lost, but there is no gleam of recognition in her eyes, nor personal bits of conversation when we speak. And therein lies my sadness.
Ah, but the joy is there, too. I heard it in the voices and applause when she finished playing. I feel it when I realize that even in this time of the dear saint’s life, a second childhood if you will, she knows her God and Savior.
Her husband, constantly at her side, related that as my brass group played the instrumental prelude earlier in the evening, she sang every carol. It wasn’t just humming; she sang the words and the tunes.
She does. She still knows her Savior and He knows His dear child.
Christmas is for children. Old and young.
It’s for the Infant, weak and helpless, who was laid in a manger all those years ago.
It’s for the little girl, dancing, carefree, on the stage beside her sisters.
It’s for the young men, adult in age but children in spirit, who will need the care of others their whole life, but who will always have more to give than they ever take.
It’s for folks like you and like me, sometimes arrogant in our certainty, but more often, childlike, coming before a God who knows us. He knows us and still, He loves us.
It’s for the old ones, who have lost the ability to remember and to function as they once did. The Creator of all that is has never forgotten them. Ever.
He won’t forget us either, as we come weak, helpless, and lost.
He became like us, that we might become, one day, like Him.
Christmas is for children.
I pray I’ll be one all my days.
I pray the same for you.
For unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given…
(Isaiah 9:6a, NKJV)
But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.”
(Matthew 19:14, NLT)
© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2021. All Rights Reserved.
