Don’t Miss Christmas
The Most Reverend Milton Wright was a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. He and his wife had two sons, Orville and Wilbur. In 1878, they gave the boys a toy “helicopter” to play with. At ages seven and eleven, the flying machine captured their young imagination.
At approximately 10:35 in the morning on December 17, 1903, Orville Wright made the first powered, controlled, and sustained flight of a heavier-than-air machine. The flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet (37 meters). Orville and his brother Wilbur made three more flights that day, the longest of which covered 852 feet (260 meters) in 59 seconds. With this telegram, sent from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in the late afternoon of the same day, Orville informed their father of the achievement. The text reads: “Success four flights this morning all against twenty-one-mile wind started from level with engine power alone average speed through air thirty-one miles longest 57 seconds inform Press home Christmas”
Upon receiving the telegram, their sister Katherine went to the newspaper office, told the editor of her brother’s new flying machine, and informed him that they would be home for Christmas if he would like to set up an interview.
He told her that was nice, and he would be sure to put something in the paper regarding the boys.
On December 19, the local paper placed the following headline on the sixth page of the paper: “Wright Brothers Home for Christmas.”
The most important story of the year and perhaps of the century—man’s first flight—and the editor missed it!
Not even the Bishop and Mrs. Wright grasped the magnitude of their sons’ accomplishment. Amanda Wright Lane, the great-grandniece of Wilbur and Orville, speaking at the Wright Memorial in Dayton on the occasion of the annual Wreath-laying ceremony commemorating the 102nd anniversary of the first flight recalled “The Wright family was thrilled to learn about that first flight, but they were happier yet to know that meant the boys, great cooks, would be home in time for Wilbur to stuff the Christmas turkey and for Orville to make his cranberry sauce, served at holiday meals.”
Walking Past a Stable
I’ve wondered about the citizens of Bethlehem passing the stable area where Mary had given birth to her son, gently laying him there in a straw-filled stone food trough. I wonder what they thought? They were strolling past the greatest story in human history - the greatest miracle imaginable - and probably never gave the scene a second glance or thought.
We can do the same. We can walk right through Christmas, right past the miracle in the manger, straight to the cranberry sauce singing “I’ll be home for Christmas” without a second glance or thought about the majesty that has unfolded.
We can miss it.
We can also pause and wonder - and worship.
Mary did. Joseph did too. So did angel-directed shepherds and star-gazing Magi. They were certainly a minority that year. But they were the predecessors of all who over the centuries have stopped for a few moments and days to find their hearts freshly astonished at the remarkable truth that claims us at Christmas.
Here it is: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1).
But why? Why did God come this far and the infinite One become so small?
Perhaps Luci Shaw’s poem “Mary’s Song” answers such questions best.
Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest …
you who have had so far
to come.) Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled
a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world.
Charmed by doves’ voices, the whisper of straw,
he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed
who overflowed all skies,
all years.
Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught that I might be free,
blind in my womb to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth
for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.
I can’t read those words without wonder and weeping: for our rebirth, he was born, for our mending, he was torn. That’s why we celebrate Christmas.
I’ll end this week’s blog post with my favorite song from my favorite Christmas musical, Behold the Lamb of God, by my friend Andrew Peterson. Labor of Love, sung by Jill Phillips, gives voice to the reality of the pain of the night that brought light and love to our darkness.