Those "Blankety-Blank" Christmas Shoes

So I was driving home the other night from a meeting at church, listening to the radio. Of course it was the 24/7 how-many-versions-of-jingle-bells-can-we-play-in-five-minutes, here's-yet-another-ego-embellished-vocal-gaudy-version-of-O-Holy-Night, Christmas-til-ya-stop-drop-and-roll-cause-you're-on-fire-with-so-much-joy station. 'Tis the season...

The one song that simultaneously causes me to overflow with both aggravation and grief is "The Christmas Shoes." The song is about a raggedly dressed little boy trying to buy his terminally-ill mother a pair of shoes for Christmas. Here's the chorus if you haven't yet had the experience:

Sir I wanna buy these shoes for my Momma please
It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry Sir?
Daddy says there's not much time
You see, she's been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes will make her smile
And I want her to look beautiful
If Momma meets Jesus, tonight.

The cynic in me is quick to dismiss the song as a cheap marketing song to play on people's emotions in order to drive sales. There's also a part of me that says, "Come on! Are you serious?! Don't play with my emotions like that!"

I've heard the song several times, and to be honest, I've teared up almost every time. Especially when the children's choir sings the chorus near the end. I have to admit, it touches a deep place in my heart.

Why am I now so moved by what I've always lumped into the category of cornier-than-thou emotional vomit? Is it because I've matured when no one was looking, despite my best efforts to remain juvenile? Is it because I now have a daughter who looks up to her mother with the same awe and devotion shown by the little boy in this song? Is it because it really is a touching song and I am sometimes a Christmas-stealing Grinch when it comes to allowing myself to feel such deep emotions?

Probably all of the above and more that I don't yet realize.

There's another reason why the song elicits such a strong grief response: the song is true! Oh it may not be literally true, as if the songwriter is reporting an event that actually happened to him and he's just set the experience to song. But the general circumstances are true.

In my vocation I deal with death and dying on a daily basis. I've seen some ugly moments of selfishness and hopelessness, of bitter family squabbling and unresolved tension. But I've also seen such genuine moments of beauty and love that I've bowed my head in reverence because I was convinced I was in the presence of the Holy One.

Nearly every death is difficult, but sometimes they're made even harder when they occur on those days that should be reserved for joy and happiness and light and laughter and love, like Christmas.

I'm tempted to think that such an experience would somehow ruin the so-called "Christmas Spirit," but as I meditate on this I realize that such tragedy doesn't ruin the holiday. It merely demonstrates our great need to remember and celebrate this holy-day.

Let us remember that we celebrate Christmas precisely because we were once utterly lost in our sins, pain and selfishness, turmoil and violence. Sickness and death are results of our disobedience, but the miraculous birth of Jesus is a reminder to us that God has done everything possible to reach out to us and heal us - he became one of us!

Matthew quotes the prophet Isaiah and says, "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" - which means, "God with us." (1:23)

Not God-angry-with-us or God-against-us or even God-judging-and-smiting-us. God with us.

God with us... Yes God with us in our celebrations and joy and gift-giving and even our gift-receiving. But also God with us in our pain and sorrow. God with us in our grief and mourning. God with us in our disappointments and angst.

God with us in our living, and God especially with us in our death and dying.

And might I be so bold as to say, God with us even in our sinning and rebellion against him.

I suppose this is why those blankety-blank Christmas Shoes elicit such a response of grief from me. It is a reminder to me that despite our culture's attempt to remove all that is holy from Christmas by presenting it as the season of gaudy garlands and gift-giving-even-if-it-means-going-into-gargantuan-debt (Can you at least appreciate the alliteration?), Christmas remains a time when ragamuffins and sinners, the downtrodden and poor, the sick and dying are given good news.

It reminds me that my desire for a sanitized, watered-down version of Christmas is really a reflection of my desire to remain shielded from the hurts and pains of the world... until I realize the depth of my own hurts and pains!

It reminds me to look past the commercialization and trivialization of Christmas, to look beyond my own selfish desires and hang-ups and to see the real reason God is with us: "He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." (John 1:11-13, NIV)

God with us. He came for you. He came for me. He came for the whole world.

And thank God for that.