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The Christmas Tree
By Bob Chance | December 24, 2007
I. An old but true story …
The old sign on the side of county road “606” said “Twin Maples”. As the old preacher passed it by he remembered one Christmas years before that took place on a cold winter’s day. Twin Maples was the family homestead of the Dickens family. Mr. Albert and Miss Bertie June Dicken were the patriarch and matriarch of the appropriately named Twin Maples farm.
Mr. Albert (in the country in those days you called anyone your senior “Mr.” or “Mrs.” or “Uncle” or “Aunt”) was a fine old white haired gentleman from an era quickly vanishing. Miss Bertie June was a mother and a lady from the old school of country life, why her biscuits were a good any man had ever sunk his teeth into. Their old white farmhouse was a picture right out of Americana. It was originally built in the 1800’s and had seen a lot winters come and go and had seen a lot of life unfold.
About fifty yards to the north side of the grand old white framed farmhouse was a much smaller and “newer” house in which Mr. Albert’s grown son and wife lived. John and Lorraine were in their forties at the time and John was a successful banker in his own right in nearby Owingsville, a small county seat town about twelve miles up the rutty two lane country road that wound its way up, around, over, and through one holler after another. John and Lorraine’s house was a small, two bedroom little rambler built in the early fifties, probably as a new residence when John and Lorraine first got married. John and Lorraine had one son, “Bob” who about fifteen at the time, 1968.
Once you made the turn up the ridge to enter the long and rut filled gravel driveway to get to the top of the hill you were in another world, a world ruled by the well seasoned old farmer who had white hair and looked like and lived like a real country gentleman. Other than the good Lord there was no higher power on the Twin Maples farm than Mr. Albert. Of course, as the young, novice preacher in the Bethel Christian Church quickly learned the real powers weren’t the old farmers, though they strutted and walked like the old roosters they were – the real powers were the women behind the iron fisted but gracious gentleman – their wives. The memory of those great old men and women and the land they loved and cherished will be with the preacher forever.
The preacher was the brand new, poor as a church mouse young preacher from the city who came to Bethel to be the minister of the Bethel Christian Church. Though he knew nothing about country life, or things of the farm the people of Bethel embraced him and loved him just like he was one of their own. Maybe, he was one of their own. He was young and impressionable. He knew next to nothing, either theologically or about farm life so it was new and exciting for him to experience life on a whole new level. Though he had been raised in the outskirts of Washington, D.C. he took to the country like a chickadee takes to sunflower seed. He was a natural. His dads and mom’s country genes, one from the rural farmland of southern Illinois and the other from the then remote farmlands of the Eastern Shore of Maryland were an integral part of his DNA, even though he never knew it consciously.
It was Christmas, 1969 and the young preacher got it into his head that he wanted to ride on a horse and cut his own Christmas tree from one of the back hollers of the Kentucky hills of Bath County. Now, the young preacher didn’t own a horse at that time, though he did get one later. He wasn’t much of a rider but he never let logic or intelligence interfere with his thinking. In the fertile imagination of the young preacher it would be a wonderful moment captured from the past if he could go riding on a horse, find a beautiful Christmas tree back on the farm, cut it down and bring it home – where he would show the real skills it took to be man.
He found an able partner in young Bob Dicken. The preacher was only twenty two or three at the time and Bob was only seven or eight years younger. Of course, seven or eight years at that stage of life was pretty significant. Bob and the preacher decided they could take two of the horses from Bob’s grandfather’s farm and go out, cut down and bring back a beautiful wild Christmas tree. Bob broached the idea with his grandfather, the white haired Mr. Albert. Although Mr. Albert must have had some serious reservations he granted permission for the pair to go out on the back of twin maples and cut themselves a Christmas tree. Discretion being the better part of good judgment it was decided that the preacher would ride Bob’s smaller horse and Bob would mount up on his grandfather’s big old mare. The young preacher didn’t see the logic at first but when he got up close to the huge old mare he gladly yielded the desire to ride her – good Lord, she stood a good 3 hands above Bob’s horse. The preacher knew there was no way he could have handled the giant old blue. It was a cold winter day when Bob and the preacher went out on the horses to find themselves a real Christmas tree. Now, they hadn’t exactly worked out the details, like how they were going to get the trees back to the farm house once they cut them but we took along some rope and a small saw and figured they had all we needed.
Things went beautifully, at first. The preacher and the boy rode down through the gates, across the fields, and down through the hollers. The air was cold and crisp and everytime the horses drew a deep breath you could see their breath billow up into the air. Soon the farm house was a distant speck in the far away horizon and they were crossing creeks, and going up and down, in and out of hollers like two cowboys out on the range. Now, in those days about all of a Christmas tree that grew out on the farms of Bath County were red cedar trees. Cedars trees grew wild and while they were exactly the kind of tree the preacher expected to find he figured a cedar would do just fine.
Bob and the preacher found two beautiful trees growing on a hillside and they cut them and tied them up with the rope they had brought along. They were full and splattered with red berries and about as pretty as you could imagine. They thought they were pretty small but of course “small” out on the farm equaled “huge” back at the house. The pair of cowboys hadn’t planned all that smartly and the task of dragging a red cedar tree back through the brush, and the crop remnants of growing seasons long gone was a bit more problematic than they had planned. The task was further complicated by the fact that the two horses, who were happy to have the young light riders riding on the backs up and over the ridges on the way “out” weren’t all that willing to put up with the additional weight and toll of dragging a ten foot red cedar along the ground on the back. The horses neighed and bucked all the way. Being a novice rider the preacher had all he could do to coax the little horse along the path of his romantic but increasingly frustrating vision.
They finally got closer and closer to being back with their trees but by then the two trees were battered and beaten remnants of the once fine specimens cut in their prime. The two young men, a novice preacher and a young farm boy hadn’t exactly calculated the toll of their beautiful trees being dragged up and down ridges of rocky hillsides. They finally decided to untie the well sheared trees and ride on back empty handed.
“Couldn’t find a good tree”, the kindly old grandfather asked as they rode their tired and worn steeds into the corral. “Well, not really” was about all the young riders said. I suspect Mr. Albert knew along the difficulty of their task but he had long since learned letting people make their decisions and live with the consequences was the best path of learning. Bob’s father, John bought his tree from the same tree lot that the preacher bought his that year, but going out and cutting their own beautiful trees was an experience and a memory the preacher and the boy would never forget. The young farm boy and the young preacher might not have gotten their flogged cedars back to the house that year but the experience was a day never forgotten.
Mr. Albert’s gone now, so is his beloved love, Miss Bertie June. John and Lorraine are gone now too, all called to cross that big creek called the Jordan and abide in the land of angels and all those they loved from generations before them. Bob has had his share of problems but somehow still manages to live on the old farm that had once been the pride and joy of the Dicken family. The old farm is a shabby remnant of what it once was.
The young preacher went on to enjoy three wonderful years in Bethel, even buying his own horse, but wisely never went out to cut his own tree on the back of a horse again. The old sign that pointed the way to Twin Maples is all but gone, beaten by storms and wind and rain over the years. The years have come and gone but somehow the memory of going out to cut their first Christmas tree from the farm stays with the two men. Things are always coming and going and lot of life has come and gone for both the preacher and the boy but some things never change.
II. The meaning of it all…
You know we live a lot farther apart and disconnected from our neighbors than those old farmers of long ago did. They were far apart geographically but close spiritually whereas we are close geographically but far apart spiritually. Many of us don’t even know the names of our neighbors, let alone have significant experiences with them. We are living a new frontier age in which we feel isolated and alone from each other and maybe even from God.
We all long for shared experiences. We all long to connect with each other and with God in deeply personal ways. We all hunger for a deeper and more abiding sense of connecting with our heart and soul to the source of all that was, all that is and all that will ever be.
That’s what Christmas is all about. God looked down and saw that the best and truest way to connect with man was to come down and dwell among us. God saw that people needed to be able to mount up and ride along with him in order to have a shared and abiding sense of knowing and relating to him. It isn’t the task of cutting the tree that ultimately counts; it’s the relationship between the riders that will guide and shape and help them learn what it means to share intimate times together.
I’m not sure I know why but God apparently needs to “connect” with us every bit as much as we need to connect with him. He wants us to know him and to share the deep and intimate moments of our daily lives with him.
God sent his prophets to connect with us.
God gave his “word” to connect with us.
God sent his angels and messengers to connect with us and to show us the way he would have men live.
Yet, in the end, and this is what Christmas is ultimately about, God knew we needed something more. We needed him. We needed a personal and real savior to be one of us, to love us and to be loved by us, to come and go with us, in the far fields and back hollers of our heart and soul and show us not only who He is but who we can be as well. Christmas is just that, God sending his beloved son, the essence of his being to come and ride along with us, showing us the way, the truth and the life.
Open up your heart, undo your imagination and mount up. Jesus, our Lord and Savior was born this (or one just like it, what difference does it make?). He came to ride with us, through the valleys and ridges, hollers and hillsides our lives in order that we could know him, and love him and now he loves us. The young boy and the young preacher went separate ways in the years to follow and they long ago lost touch with one another. Human riders will come and go but when you ride with the Lord you will never be alone. Seasons will come and go but alleluia, alleluia, God is with us forever.
Jesus, Lord and Savior as born this night, long, long ago in a land far away. But more importantly he is born again this night, in your heart, if you will choose to let him ride with you.
Merry Christmas.
Topics: Sermons |
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