Kathy got the idea from somewhere, probably a magazine that no longer exists. “We’ll take a picture every year,” she said, “and we’ll turn them into ornaments for the tree.” And, amazingly, we did. Not every tradition we’ve tried has lasted, but this one—thanks to Kathy’s persistence—has survived.
On Christmas Eve of our first year as a married couple, someone took a Polaroid picture of us by our tree in the associate pastor’s parsonage in Snellville. Then Kathy hot-glued some ribbon around it, and we were off and running. For the 38 Christmases since, we’ve taken a picture of our family. Granted, some of them were of the “Oh-My-Gosh-We-Haven’t-Taken-the-Picture-Grab-the-Boys-and-Find-the-Camera-and-No-I-Don’t-Care-That-They’re-Sweaty-and-Gross-and-Grumpy” variety, but somehow we managed to get the pictures.
And in the pictures is our story.
1986: Kathy great with child
1987: Stephen, eight months old
1988: Great with child again
1989: Two squirming toddlers
2000-2001: An extra face, a teenager living with us
And so the saga unfolded—thirty-seven years; eight houses; seven churches and one editorship for me and four hospitals for Kathy (who can clearly keep a job better than I can); both toddlers married now; and, tada, one grandson.
I believe they call this life. And Christmas is a stop along life’s way, an annual sojourn in Bethlehem. We pause between our solar laps and snap pictures and take stock. We rejoice, grieve, and count heads and blessings. Then, like the mother of our faith, we ponder it all in our hearts before setting out again.
Or maybe Christmas isn’t a stop along the way at all, but rather the way itself, the ground beneath our feet and the star by which we chart our course. The Christmas story is the constant through the years, the good news that gives life to the life we measure. Christmas is the song in the air we breathe. It’s the gracious glue that holds together all the moments of all the years.
It comes down to this: Christmas is Emmanuel. In Jesus’ first cries, the boundaries between heaven and earth and the holy and mundane were erased—no longer an up there and down here, just God with us. In every moment shared, through loss or birth, in our breaking and mending, Christ is there—blessing, redeeming, holding it all.
Now our solar circling has brought us around again. Christmas is this Sunday. Hear the good news and rejoice. Christ is born! Grab your phone, if you wish, and capture the moment. Then, in next moment and the next and in every moment after, I pray you will know the breadth and length and height and depth of the joy that is Emmanuel.
In Christ,
Mark