Our dog made the introduction. A young man was sitting at the outdoor table next to ours last summer in Asheville, NC and asked if I would take a picture of him with our dog. The dog was the reason we were sitting outdoors in front of the food court and not inside. “Of course,” I said. And so, I took the picture. Then he explained that he had a dog back home that looked a lot like ours. So, I asked, “Where is home?” He said “Singapore,” and I told him we were going to be in Singapore at Christmas. He had come to Brevard, NC for the summer music program where his daughter was playing the French horn. I learned that like me, he was a Presbyterian minister, but in Singapore, that he and my wife, Wesla, had a shared interest in hydroponic gardening, and that a colleague of ours from Princeton Seminary had been to his church several times in Singapore. There were just too many coincidences. We both felt that this was a divine appointment and didn’t know why. We walked back to our hotel, and I gave him a copy of my book. And he invited us to join his family for Christmas dinner in Singapore. Three months later, when our ship arrived at the harbor of Singapore, we knew exactly who we wanted to see. We met Willy’s family and the dog, Arthur.
It changed our trip
from simply seeing sights to having a local connection. Willy took us onto a rooftop to see a hydroponic garden where he works with autistic kids. He took us to the national orchid garden my wife especially wanted to see. We ate a meal at their home. And we went to the church with his family on a Sunday morning and for Christmas Eve. Christmas moved from being something which we were going to be observing far from home to something quite personal. The connection we had made months earlier created the expectation that this was a relationship we should pay attention to.
The story of Christmas is much like that.
It is the story of God making a personal connection with us through Jesus. It isn’t a story about divine advice for living, or dogmatics, or the opinions we should have about a host of issues. It is about a heavenly host and the intersection of the human with the divine. It leaves us reflecting not about what is impersonal, but about the very personal character of this story. Not about how far away we are from home, but that we can find home wherever we are. The shepherds showed up and so did the wisemen. It was a moment not to be missed. It touches our deepest hopes.
My friend Willy preached about Zechariah (also, coincidentally, our dog’s name) in the New Testament and Mary, the mother of Jesus. Zechariah was a priest, a religious professional. He went into the Temple and was shocked to meet God, even though he should have expected that very thing. But the encounter was more personal than he imagined. The word of the angel was to him and to his wife, Elizabeth. Mary, on the other hand, wouldn’t have been expecting an angel, but responded with greater faith. The sermon was an invitation not to be surprised but to expect God to touch us – personally and powerfully. It is the story of Christmas. It is the story of Love.
