And Heaven Paused

I love holidays, including Christmas, even if the department store nearby puts out its Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. I love those colored lights around the windows—even if they don’t always twinkle like the box says they should. I even love the lopsided popsicle-stick ornaments dangling from the tree, that the kids made.

It was two days before Christmas a few years ago. Flames were dancing in the fireplace; lights shimmered around the mantle reflecting on the hearth. Laughter from visiting grandparents floated in from the kitchen. Then the telephone rang…and, for me life paused.

It was a friend calling. “Hi Kurt, this is Keith. Well, Kurt, this has been quite a year. I’ve moved, changed jobs, gone through a divorce, and the doctors tell me I have cancer. I’ll most likely lose my life…”

My mind began spinning; my thoughts screamed, “It isn’t fair! Why doesn’t life follow the rules? What about unfinished dreams—seeing grandkids take their first wobbly steps or weave a bicycle unsteadily down the sidewalk or being an angel in the Christmas play? Besides, Keith is my friend! I still need him!”

I grasped for words. Keith understood and said, “It’s hard to know what to say at a time like this, isn’t it, Kurt?”

The sad part of life is that the same experience has repeated itself since that phone call. On another December day, my college roommate and “friend who sticks closer than a brother,” died from a heart attack. This past Saturday, just six days before Christmas, I attended a memorial service for a long-time friend. For her husband and three children, Christmas cheer this year will be difficult to muster.

At heart-wrenching times, the fire still burns in the fireplace; the lights still twinkle; the relatives still laugh in the kitchen while making those special treats. Yet at each of these heart-breaking moments, Heaven pauses.

Yes, Heaven pauses. You see God is like that. He is not like you and me, calloused by newspaper and television accounts of drive-by shootings, tornadoes, and numerous catastrophes. When people hurt, God hurts. Every person is His child. Yes, that is correct—even you. When you suffer, God suffers. When you hurt, God hurts. When you cry out…Heaven pauses. Why? Because like a mother frozen in mid-stride in the kitchen when her child cries out in pain from the backyard–God pauses at your cry.

But His pause is only for a moment. In an instant all the attention of Heaven is pointed in your direction. Every resource of God is at your demand. You see God is like that.

That is why we read in Matthew 1:20-23, “But while he (Joseph) thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, “for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

“And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

“Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel” which is translated, “God with us.”

I like those words, don’t you? God is with us. So on this Christmas Eve, my words to my friends and those of you who are sorrowful; my words to those who feel happiness in your being–are these: let us find Joy in the Christ Child, Jesus, for His name means that “God is with us.”

God is with us—He holds you close to Him so you feel His comfort and care. He holds you close to Him to soothe your troubled heart; He sits down beside you with a hand on your shoulder and a smile just for you. You see, the Child of Bethlehem who came from Heaven and has gone back into Heaven, is coming again, that where He is there we may be also.

That, for me, is the true meaning of Christmas…