(4) Christmas Homecoming

Following is an excerpt from a sermon I gave the Sunday after Christmas, 1993. My dad was dying from advanced prostate cancer and we had brought him home to live out his last days. He died on New Year’s Eve. On his calendar, January 1, Dad had written: “I finish what I start.”

My father was diagnosed with prostrate cancer some five years ago; the disease had already metastasized. He did well until this year, when the slow but steady onslaught of this potential killer became painfully visible. On December 17, Dad became so disoriented and weak, it was necessary to hospitalize him. My mother, two sisters and I were faced with the dilemma of whether to put him in a nursing facility or bring him home. Last Wednesday, he was borne home by ambulance. Immediately, his condition worsened. The next day my sister called to urge me to come over soon. Dad's condition was deteriorating rapidly. I rushed over to find that his heart was misfiring like a V-8 engine firing on two cylinders. His chest heaved to the irregular tune of the dreaded death rattle, caused by fluid filled breathing passages. The visiting nurse warned that the end was near, so we should make the necessary decisions. He slipped into a coma-like state and could not receive food or fluid.

Almost all of the grandchildren appeared at Dad's bedside the Thursday before Christmas to bid their grandfather a tearful farewell. Some stood at a distance, as if held back by a frigid and impenetrable wall that separates the living from the dying, locked in a microcosm of grief and pain. Other grandkids entered undaunted, falling to their knees by their Grandpa’s bed, grasping his hand tenderly as they talked and prayed. The eldest grandson, a robust fellow, slipped on to the bed beside his beloved grandfather, kissing his forehead, telling him that he loved him but also joking with him, knowing that his grandpa was a kidder. He did not seem intimidated by the specter of death. Seeing him there, I beheld Christ, cradling a pale and emaciated old man, laughing at death in its doorway, affirming life in the midst of death. It occurred to me that I too could laugh in the face of death, we all can, because God's Son is come, making his home with us, climbing into our cradle, sharing our grave, holding us in the Everlasting Arms of Eternal Love until we are born anew by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Christmas Eve dawned; I had to leave early for some dental work. When I returned a few hours later, Dad was not in his bed as I approached his room. My heart sank as I anxiously entered the room and then sighed with relief. Dad was sitting up in a chair, his nurse aide beside him. He was all spruced up, awake, alert, no death rattle. Dad's cancer specialist had told my Mom that he would pray for a Christmas miracle. Could this be it? Dad took nourishment and stayed up most of the day. The family came back and took turns visiting with Gramps; he even opened a few presents.

The day before my Dad left the hospital, my nephew's wife, who earlier in the year suffered a miscarriage, had a brand spanking new infant boy but Gramps didn't get to see him before he left the same hospital for home. As Dad's life ebbed away on Thursday, we opined that he would never lay eyes on the newest member of the family but Friday afternoon he rejoiced to behold his newest great-grandson. It was another incarnation; a resurrection; a further manifestation of life in the midst of death. As a family, we celebrated Christmas with new poignancy as God appeared to us in a new and unexpected place, just as he did at Bethlehem and Golgotha and at Joseph's tomb. Christ comes to us as a helpless infant, a bed-fast old man, or as a poor young couple looking for a place to stay. Christ cries out to be cared for in our human families and in our family of faith.

Christmas means homecoming for many of us. Coming home to those we love; being family, celebrating community. This Sunday is often called Holy Family Sunday; God didn't descend in solitary splendor but was birthed into the human family. Christ made his home in our world that we might come home to the Father. My father came home for Christmas and one day soon he will go home to be with the Father of Lights. My current experience reinforces for me the truth that God comes to us and cares for us in community, in families. Christmas is a foretaste of our final homecoming with all who surround the throne of God