Christmas Video Greeting

Recorded in hospital in the week of his surgery and played at Erindale Bible Chapel on Christmas Sunday, 2002, in place of the sermon he had expected to preach. As in his journal, the names of medical staff and other third parties have been omitted or generalized; a word standing in for a name is bracketed, […].

Dec. 22,2002

Good morning everyone. As we gather together for worship this morning, I am so glad that I can be with you, if only electronically. Christmas Sunday has always been for me one of the most exciting times to be in church – there’s so much joy; so much hope, so much anticipation. It’s a great time to be a Christian!

This week, I particularly want to thank you for your outpouring of love, support, and prayer during my hospitalization. It has been anything but a routine week in our lives, but your prayers carried us through.

I must also thank you for your self-restraint. I know the urge was there to call or to come in and visit, but you wisely and lovingly refrained from doing so in order to give me the space I needed to regain my strength after my surgery.

I want to say a special word of recognition and thanks to my medical team – I’m so proud of them, and so proud to know that so many of them are brothers and sisters from Erindale Bible Chapel. From [my surgeon], to [my oncologist], to [the head of oncology] who took over her role when [she] was out of town, to [a second surgeon] who consulted with [my surgeon] about surgical options and dropped by to see me almost every day, to [a specialist] who we brought in to offer some suggestions about my high blood pressure, to [an elder of the church], who faithfully carried out that most vital role – the role of spiritual care. These people, along with the dedicated nurses and specialists of Floor 3C at the Trillium Health Care Centre showered me with love, care, and dedicated professional service. I am so grateful to God for them and for the tremendous ministry they represent on behalf of Erindale.

Buit at the same time as I acknowledge the excellence of their medical care, we all recognize that it was God who deserves the credit for what happened this week. I felt his sense of control over events – even over the painful, scary, and uncertain events.

And I thought of that in terms of the Christmas Story. Naturally, with Christmas approaching, and assuming that I was going to preach to you today, I had been thinking a lot about the Christmas story in the weeks leading up to this one.

I became convinced that we needed to hear the Christmas story in all its simple beauty. Sometimes we get too intent on trying to discover some new angle to it; to put some new “spin” on the story, as they say in Ottawa or Washington. Yet what we really need is just the bare unvarnished story itself.

That’s why I was so grateful when I heard that [a friend] could be here in my place to tell the story – for I know that he will “tell it straight”; he will do it clearly, faithfully, and gracefully.

One more thing God impressed on me this week: For the characters of Christmas, the story is simply about being available:

• Jesus the Son of God, the Maker of the Universe, made himself available to be a baby

• Mary made herself available to the Mother of the Messiah, even though it cost her her reputation in the eyes of others

• Joseph made himself available to be a protector and provider for that little family that found itself in the eye of a hurricane.

Availability is all that God asked of them – be available and he would take care of the rest.

As I have thought about my situation, confined to a hospital bed these past many nights, I have been learning that that is all God requires of me. He just wants me to be available – even when I don’t always understand what’s going on; even though some experiences may be life-threatening and painful; even though my sphere of activity has been narrowed down to a few square metres – a hospital bed and not much more. If I can be sure that within that tiny space Jesus is Lord – in my heart, in my life, in my hospital room – then all will be well, come what may.

So enjoy Christmas Sunday! Enjoy the singing and worship. Let God fill you with his wonder and hope. And I will be worshiping with you.

Thank you!