In the week leading up to Christmas, the network news ran several stories which, according to the anchors who introduced them, “captured the true meaning of the holiday”. One of the stories involved a soldier who arrived home from deployment in time to surprise his children; one story profiled an older man who made wooden toys for the Salvation Army; still another story featured footage of parents and children singing songs to their local school crossing guard.
Those pieces have everything we often look for in Christmas—sentimentality, happy endings, and an emphasis on children—however, none of them even come close to expressing what the feast means in Holy Orthodoxy.
But as I was arriving at the parish early Christmas morning, I witnessed two scenes which really do sum up what Nativity is all about.
In order to get the services started on time, I have to get to the parish around 5:30am. As I drove by the Cedar Park Cemetery, I saw a woman sitting on a bench by a grave. Of course, it’s still dark at 5:30, but this woman always parks her SUV at an angle, and she leaves the lights on while she sits on a bench.
I say ‘always’ because she’s actually out there a couple of times a week. She’s been keeping that early morning vigil for several years now. I’m only guessing, but I think that she may be sitting beside the grave of her child. She’s fairly young; she’s a little on the heavy side, so the bench sags just a bit. Seeing her out there at that time of the morning always moves me, but on Christmas…well, you can imagine.
A minute or so later, and I’m pulling into the old parish parking lot. As I turned into the circular drive, the lights on the car fell on the carcass of a young deer. It had been hit by some sort of vehicle, but it had managed to make it on to our property. My first reaction was to sigh and to wonder how long it would be before a city sanitation crew could come out and pick it up.
But then I got out of the car, and I walked towards the carcass, and, suddenly, I noticed that, another, larger deer, was standing not far from the body. It put it’s head down and stepped tentatively towards the body of the dead fawn, but then it hesitated and stepped back. I actually felt like I was intruding, so I walked on over to the Long Hall, but, after an hour or so, when I came back out to sweep the front porch, the older deer was still there.
I don’t know much at all about deer, but I’m wondering if the larger animal was a mom, mourning a child, just like the human mom less than a mile down the road.
Later that morning, I’m standing at the chanter’s stand. We’re working our way through the Nativity Canon, and there is stanza after stanza which describes why our Lord and Master was born: to free us from the bondage of death.
By the time the services were over and I was driving out of the parking lot, the buzzards were already at work on the carcass of the fawn; the older deer was nowhere to be seen. However, I know that, in the weeks and months ahead, I will most likely see that woman in the cemetery at least once a week.
And feel good stories about home comings and toy donations and crossing guards can’t touch that kind of pain. The usual holiday sentiments have nothing to offer when it comes to that kind of sadness. But that’s why our celebration of Christmas is so very, very important: as we honor our newly born Savior, we proclaim a tangible and concrete hope—the mom in the cemetery will see her child on the great and glorious Day of Resurrection. That doe and her fawn will be reunited when this Creation is made new.
That’s why it was so gratifying to see so many of you at the services for the Feast. It’s not because of statistics (we don’t keep any); it’s not because of reporting (neither our diocese or archdiocese requires that); it’s because we have now sent a whole lot of people out into the world, people who truly know what Christmas is all about.
So live that good news. Share that good news. Christ is Born. Glorify Him.