Hark!

This is the story of the "coming to faith" of a dear friend, Dave Hingsburger of Chewing the Fat . Thank you so much Dave, and welcome to Whatever He Says as a guest blogger.
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I am a Christmas Christian. By this I do not mean that I come back to faith, yearly, like a salmon spawning. No, though my faith is strengthened by the rituals and the ceremony of the holidays, I am a year round believer. But I came to faith at Christmas. In fact I remember the exact moment that I met Jesus.

A fat and ungainly child, a child of no promise in a home infused with violence, I did not love life, I feared it. Constant, unrelenting fear. Christmas was a time to be endured, gotten through, escaped. A holiday that, to me, resembled a drunken man laughing too loud in a bar, I despised the season. All I knew was that at some moment the stress of the season would break and then part of me would break or bruise. I saw adulthood ahead, I saw it as a land wherein I would make the rules and one of those rules would be no Christmas, no family, and thereby, no pain.

I was home alone, upstairs in my room. I had a room with a peaked ceiling and a window that looked out onto the road in front of the house. I was looking out the window and listening to music on the radio. Hark the Herald came on and I listened to the familiar tune and perhaps even sang along. But between the last Christmas and this one, the words were more than lyrics - they told a story. Suddenly I understood it all, Christmas, had a point. Jesus, his birth, was separate from the casual violence of an angry mother and a neglectful father. There was something behind all this, something much, much deeper.

I stole downstairs and found an old Bible and took it back up to my room. I found something there that I didn't know existed. Love.

Oddly, I was never charmed by the baby Jesus. I didn't have need of an infant Christ. Even though my faith came at Christmas, it came with an Easter understanding. But the spectacles of the faith, Santa and the Bunny, weren't what mattered to me then, or indeed now. It was the daily companionship of a God who loved me. It was the daily walking together. It was the daily chats. My aloneness dissipated and my childhood grew less heavy in my hands. I felt the burden shared, I felt that this man somehow could love me.

It is many years later, and I still find that the friendly Jesus who I knew as a child has remained close. Our relationship has changed, of course, over time. There was a time when he just was with me, got me through, helped me get back up, again and again. He demanded little of me. He wanted only to be a whisper of confidence when blows rained down. Now, I find myself arguing a bit with this friend of mine. He wants things of me now, like tolerance and a thirst for justice. He sometimes wants more of me than I am prepared to give. He sometimes seems to see in me more, much much more, than I know is there.

At church this morning we sang Hark the Herald and when we got to these lines:

Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth

I was taken back to that day in my childhood bedroom listening to these words, for the first time. Tears filled my eyes at the memory of a relationship that began that day. It would be years before anyone ever spoke to me about being 'born again' and I remember being struck at the intensity with which I was being spoken too. Of course faith gives a second birth, of course it did. The idea thrilled me as a boy, the first go round wasn't all that successful and another shot seemed wonderful. Then and now.

So I wish that friendly man who came at Christmas a happy birthday. I'll greet him on Christmas morning like I did that year. With gratitude.

Because each moment we spent together was one I didn't spend alone. Because each time he held me, I knew that love was possible. Because each time he picked me up, I knew I was closer to home.