It's Christmas Eve and we're all looking for a Home

          photo by russellstreet / flikr

"Come home, come home

All who are weary come home;

Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,

O sinner, come home."

--gospel song

It’s Christmas Eve and tonight most churches will be almost filled. This pandemic still scares a lot of people. But from all over many will come. Janie with her five-old daughter. The Business man who has dragged his wife and four daughters to this service. Bill trying desperately to kick drugs. Too many rehabs.There’s the little old woman with blue hair there with her Bible. She sits alone. All over the house there are children straining their necks wondering what will happen. Joe sits in the corner gay but has never come out. The Chinese couple with one child. The husband with  his wife who comes in holding tight with her slow dementia shuffle.  The widow who lost her sister and her husband from the virus this awful year. 

What do we say to all of these and to us, too?  We settle down as the lights flicker. The best way that I know to write about this Christmas Eve is to tell you a story. This story is so beautiful and powerful that it has been told everywhere. Pete Hamill, a journalist wrote these words…

Three boys and three girls from New York boarded a bus on 34th Street. They were going to Fort Lauderdale where they hoped it would be warm and fun. They carried with them a big bottle of wine and a bag of sandwiches. The kids began to play a game by looking at the people on the bus and wondering who they were. And they pointed to this man in the brown suit on the third row. Who he was and where was he going?

Somewhere around Washington the bus stopped at Howard Johnson’s and most of the bus got off. But this man just sat there and finally got up and went into the restaurant and took a booth.. The kids from New York  began to whisper: “Who do you think he is? A derelict, maybe he had run away from his wife. He didn’t look like a serial killer. “ 

When they got back on the bus and one of the girls sat next to him. “What’s your name?”she asked. “Vingo.” What’s yours?” “Mary Anne.”“We’re going to Florida. Can’t wait. We’ve never been there.” It’’s beautiful the man replied. The girls leaned close and asked him if he lived there? “I did”, he answered. And then he began to tell her his story…

He has been in jail in New York for four years and now he was going home. Are you married? He said he didn’t know. You don’t know? 

And he said he told his wife that when he left if she wanted to start over with someone else he would understand. If the kids started asking questions try not to say too much. He never heard a word. “And so you’re going home, now knowing?” He nodded.  He told her that last week as his parole was coming through he wrote her saying: “I’ll be coming that way on a Greyhound Bus.” 

He didn’t know if his wife would take him back. Vingo told Mary Anne they used to live in Brunswick and there was a huge oak tree there—very famous. Vingo wrote and said if you want to see me me tie a yellow  ribbon on that tree and I’ll get off the bus. If not, he would keep going.

Mary Anne she moved back where her friends sat. She told them the story about the man and Brunswick and the yellow ribbon. The kids started looking out the window for Brunswick and that tree.Then it was ten miles and five miles and closer and closer. The kids started laughing and clapping and crying and even dancing in the aisle. But Vingo just sat there stunned. 

The tree was covered with yellow handkerchiefs. Twenty, thirty maybe more. Those handkerchiefs just fluttered in the wind. The old con got up and made his way off the bus to go home. The kids yelled and clapped as he left.

As I remembered this old story I thought about all of us everywhere sitting in some candle-lit church. And all those others who wold never come. This night of nights is for us all. As we leave the service and head for home I hope we will remember that yellow ribbon and the One whose arms still takes all in.

courtesy of flikr

 Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com