Rev. Ted Huffman

The Sixth Day of Christmas

I remember nights when our children were very young. Perhaps my memory has merged several nights into a single memory, but I know that there were times when I was awake trying to calm a fussy baby, knowing that even though I was exhausted, my wife was equally so and trying not to wake her while I tried to come up with the right actions to calm the baby. Even though I was a dad who was actively involved in childcare, my repertoire of actions was fairly limited. If the baby was clean, dry and fed, about the only thing I knew to do was to wrap the child in a blanket and rock it. Sometimes I would sing. What I remember is being tired and feeling like I wished the child could talk and tell me what was the matter.

There weren’t many nights like that, really. Our children were healthy and grew quickly and from the perspective of these many years later, their time of being infants went by very quickly. Soon they were not only able to speak, but became articulate at telling us what they wanted and needed.

There are a lot of memories, of course, and I won’t report all of them in this blog, but here is another. Our children were 2 and 4. I was preaching as a candidate to be presented for call to a new parish. As the service was ending, I looked up to the rear of the sanctuary, where there was a window from the nursery. Parents could take their small children to that room where they could hear and see the service, while their children could play. When I looked up, our two children were standing with their faces pressed to the glass looking down at me. Suddenly, the weight of the decision that lay ahead overwhelmed me. If I accepted the call to this congregation, our children would be moving with us from one state to another. They would grow up remembering a city as their home town instead of a small town. My decision wasn’t just about me and my career, but about our whole family.

Being a parent is all about learning that one lives for more than oneself. The recognition that one’s decisions have a big impact on the lives of others is evident when one considers the children. Of course those who never become parents also live lives that have huge impacts on others. Children, however, remind one of this reality in an undeniable manner.

The journey from infancy to adulthood is especially long in humans. I watch the deer in the yard. As mammals go, they are fairly large. Their young, however, become quite capable in a short amount of time. They walk within a few minutes of their birth. They are nibbling grass and eating independently within a few months. By the age of two years, they are fully capable of living independently and engaging in full adult behavior. A few animals take a bit longer to grow to maturity. Humans take years. In earlier generations children were considered adults in their early teens when they reached sexual maturity. In our culture, we consider that trip to take much longer. Children often aren’t fully independent until their late twenties. Education, the establishment of careers, developing relationships, learning about intimacy, making commitments - there are a lot of complex parts to becoming an adult human being. Along the way children need love and support and, occasionally, a bail-out.

Becoming a parent is a long-term commitment. And that commitment continues when your children are in their thirties and forties and fifties as well. When they become parents, you feel the bond and connection in deeply meaningful ways.

One of the things that our children teach us is that our relationship with God is a growing and developing relationship. In this season each year we remind ourselves that God’s love for humans was expressed in the form of an infant. God didn’t enter humanity fully developed, but rather as an infant, born with need of assistance in nearly every aspect of survival. Jesus came to this world as a tiny babe, in need of help with eating, cleaning, and comforting.

The gospels don’t report much of his childhood. We have a few stories: the presentation of the infant in the temple, a return when he was 12 years old and the report that the an annual visit to the temple was part of his parents’ routine, and then, a verse or so later, Jesus is 30, considered to be a mature adult. The details have not been retained in our common memory, but we know from the record that his mother, Mary, “kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Just because we don’t remember the details a couple of millennia later doesn’t mean that they weren’t important.

Given that the process of his growing took decades and required no small amount of patience on the part of his parents, we shouldn’t be surprised that sometimes it takes decades for contemporary humans to come to faith. Faith rarely is an instant process. It takes time and patience. It frequently involves missteps and diversions. And like the development of other aspects of adult life, we don’t all go through the process in the same fashion. Each journey of faith is unique with its own unique challenges and opportunities and experiences.

Christmas is a time of remembering that our faith is a relationship that grows and deepens over time. We need not expect instant results. We might experience a few nights that are long when the dawn isn’t clear. We are likely to become frustrated at times and marvel at others. And when, after many years of journeying, we look back, our minds will compress the journey and make it seem less difficult and long than it seemed as it was being lived.

This Christmas, give yourself the gift of patience. Allow time to pay attention and marvel at the wonder. Don’t look for instant results. Soon enough it will seem like it all passed far too quickly.

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