No one has ever made it through December without their senses being tapped by a tinge of unexpected Christmas magic. It is often so subtle that we don’t even know what hit us, until of course, it does. Maybe it’s the dusting of snow that appeared out of nowhere one morning, or the echo of the last words of Silent Night hanging in your church’s chapel. The feeling’s been there all year long and we know it’s coming, but it’s been hiding in our hearts waiting for the right moment to flood over us with memories of Christmas and all the magic of the season.
My first flush of the season happened just the other day and like a lot of surprises, came at a t ime when the holiday spirit seemed, at least for me, out of reach.
To bring you up to speed, let’s begin when my wife and I met the policeman named Brad who guards our church every Sunday. He is usually at the doorway when we enter, very big, well over six feet, looking robust and confident as he wards off the dangers from city misfits and other threats we never hear about.
The thing is, Brad loves his policeman role. He wants to be that guy – the officer who dons the vest and gear, who is ready to be tough when the safety of the public makes it necessary. He can do the cop thing hands down, that is the role he has trained for, and yet over the years as I have gotten to know Brad, I have come to realize that no matter what calls come over the dispatch, he will cushioned them with common sense and compassion. He may tell you his civic responsibility is to keep the public safe but at the end of the day, the relationships he’s building in the community go far deeper that just his uniform.
Now and then, between his double shifts Brad is often able to squeeze into our small group meetings. It is anybody’s guess what kind of situation he has just come from as he grabs a folding chair and joins the circle, and he often arrives looking dead tired from an all-nighter, barely able to keep his eyes open as sips the church coffee he is calling breakfast. He had been witness to the steady stream of bad choices others have made – there have been police runs he’s not allowed to talk about involving handcuffs and confrontations and sometimes dangerous split-second decisions that involve undesirables. He is looking for the same thing we are, a way to surrender all of it and get small again in a world with problems too complicated, too big even for Big Brad to fix.
So, when over a year went by and I hadn’t seen our friend at church, I began to get concerned that something bad had happened, that Brad was going through something personal at home, or perhaps dealing with a difficult health problem. Then, when my texts or calls were not returned, I began to worry that he had been dispatched on a run that had gone sideways.
Inside our small group, as the rest of us continued our course of study and prayer this year, we seemed to face a barrage of unshakable hits. One daughter of a mom in our circle faced either losing a baby during delivery or dying of a stroke unless surgery was performed immediately.
Another member’s divorce hearings had gone on for almost a decade in what felt like an uphill battle, and she was fighting off bitterness, and even her God whose love felt more like “piling it on.”
We had leaned into the serenity of Psalm 23 in mid-year, listened and reminded each other of God’s promises and providence. We had held hands and studied and lifted each other up with books by Bob Goff and Oswald Chambers and as we grieved for parents who were passing away and dealing with family members who blamed and yelled. Nearing the end of several book studies by Gordon McDonald, we reminded each other to avoid the pitfalls of golden calves, and to worked on our vital optimism. Yet, we heard more disheartening news from one of our own in the group who had just been diagnosed with ALS, and we held hands and prayed to fear no evil, and for mercy and goodness to follow us along the still waters. As we concluded our last meeting for the year, one filled with solemnity and humility, my wife and I walked in a daze down a long staircase into our church’s foyer, way too deep in our own heads.
Halfway down, my wife touched my shoulder, and looking up, there was our familiar friend in the entranceway – Brad. He stood, as usual with his hands tucked in his vest, head on a swivel, alert and steady.
“Brad, is that you over there?” I yelled bounding down the stairs to greet him.
All that had gone by missing him, and wondering about him, and where-in-the-world-had- hebeen-lately, flooded out of us, and for a long minute his bearhug took the place of our doubtful year – and I can tell you when you’ve been hugged by a policeman of Brad’s size, fully locked and loaded, you know you’ve been hugged.
Then, I got the tap – that first tinge, the reminder of the season, and I heard the long note of a church choir being held somewhere, with promises of magic and snow falling and new beginnings – all of it came flooding in.
Brad the policeman was back, and he had stories of handcuffs and bricks thrown through windows, of drug addicts screaming in emergency rooms, and confrontations with motorists. He had been in houses that had no front doors and seen children sitting in feces that had to be taken from screaming parents. There were drunks who had wandered onto the Expressway, and suicide calls and second and third reports of domestic violence from the same house in the same night.
And when we all stopped talking at once and caught our wind, Brad apologized for his crazy schedule, long days and double shifts and nights when he took one last call when he’d rather be home hunkered down in the warmth of his home on his couch with a large pizza and a good Netflix series.
Yet, Brad tells us, that one call happened just the other night. He was almost home, when he decided to turn his car around and head out to a women’s shelter to encourage an at-risk mom who had made some very bad choices with drugs. When you’ve done some things that put you at risk of losing your daughter forever, where turning your life around seems impossible, having someone who will take a moment to listen, a policeman like Brad, who is willing to make one last run, might make the difference between a life and a life in jail.
A short visit, Brad told us, a quick pep talk and hug. That’s what Brad-the-police-officer thought was waiting but then Brad-the-person had forgotten one detail…it was Christmastime, a time when tinges and nudges tell us there is magic when we least expect it, and that magic can show up anytime like a bright star on a clear night.
Waiting for Brad was not only the mom but the daughter, the four-year-old that could have been lost to foster care. While mom and Brad talked, she stood quietly in the background listening to the big man in the vest.
“May I pray for you?” She says suddenly and reaches out to squeeze Brad’s big hand.
“Pray? For me?” Brad stammered. “Sure,” but his eyes became blurry as her tiny hand came forward and that first tinge of Christmas sprinkled the air.
He hears the prayer of a child who was bigger than all the brokenness of the world, and at that moment, Brad became very small. He told us that she prayed that he would be safe when he with “bad guys,” and told him that God loved him and she loved him too, and squeezed his hand again, harder this time, and thank you for helping my mommy she prayed, and for the baby Jesus who was God’s son and born on Christmas day, Amen she added and then gave Brad the biggest small hug ever.
Brad was back… indeed, and so were we.