Christmas Trees

On my way to church yesterday evening to unlock and prepare for the early Christmas Eve service, I drove past the local Christmas Tree lot in the heart of Navarre. I was unprepared for what I saw. Daily - since Thanksgiving - I have driven past that lot and seen rows and rows of carefully chosen and cared for Frazier Firs underneath big white awning. About three days ago, I noticed that more than half of what must have been a hundred trees had yet to be selected and taken home with a happy and eager family. That day I thought...hmmmm....still three more days to Christmas, must be a lot of folks out there waiting (as we do in our home) to decorate a tree. Perhaps there are a lot more locals living into Advent than I had thought. 

I should have known better. Because last night as I drove past the lot all the trees were gone - not to happy homes but instead to a mound of chopped up Frazier Firs that must have been seven feet tall just outside the white canopy. Alas, those beautiful trees had found their way not to cozy warm home to be decked out with lights and ornaments, but instead to a communal "burial ground" - unable to "live into" what had been their destiny when they had been planted at a Christmas Tree farm years ago. How sad.

The Good News of Christmas is that, through the astounding love expressed in the Christ Child born today, God has given each one of us the astounding gift of being chosen, adopted, "taken home," if you will - to be adorned and loved and cherished as special in the household of God's Kingdom. And to the extent that we too embrace and take into our hearts those who have been cast-away - the "unchosen evergreens," the needy, and the hurting in this world -  we will participate with God in the New Birth of God's New Creation.

Next year, why not look for the smallest, crookedest, and most ungainly tree for your Christmas, bring it home and adorn it with love and appreciation. And do so in something of the same way with those people who are also at risk of being passed over and in a very real sense, disposed of by our society?