The breaking glass sounded like a huge explosion in the late night silence of January fifth. Karen fully expected police cars to come roaring down the alley to arrest her, but she no longer cared. She was going to do to God what God had done to her.
Reaching through the broken window, she turned the door knob to let herself into the church building. "That was easy enough, Karen thought to herself."
She stepped inside, and stood listening. "No burglar alarms, no police sirens, no sounds of people rushing to stop me from breaking into a church… and no God," Karen thought to herself. "If you can't even stop me from breaking into your church, God; then what good are you!"
The bleeding inside her mouth had stopped, but her anger was just getting started. It was bad enough that God was useless to Karen, but she was finished with letting God cause her trouble, especially at Christmas-time.
When Karen was just six years old, her mother had died on Christmas Day. Her father had explained over and over that cancer had killed her mother, but Karen kept asking why a loving God had let her mother die on Christmas Day. Her father had no answer.
From that time on, Karen had started hating God, and she refused to go to church with her family. Every time her father took her, she would throw a terrible tantrum in front of everyone. Finally, he just stopped taking the family to church.
Then when Karen was in her teens, one of her best friends had been killed in an automobile accident. She had been coming home from a party. There had been alcohol at the party, alcohol that the teens had given to each other as Christmas presents. The police contributed the accident to alcohol, but Karen contributed it to God’s lack of caring.
Now, eleven days after Christmas, her husband had beaten her again. And it had all started because of Christmas. Every year her husband insisted on celebrating all twelve days of Christmas, and his celebrations always consisted of getting drunk. This time, his twelve day binge of drinking “Christmas cheer” had cost him his job, a job they desperately needed. The bills were stacking up. Her waitress work just was not enough to provide for them.
When her husband came home, and announced that he had lost yet another job, she did not say a word. But he could see the fear and desperation on her face, and that is all it took. He started calling her stupid. He said that if she had just worked harder she would have earned bigger tips, and they could have had a better Christmas.
“Work harder!” she snapped back. “I should work harder so you can buy more beer, get more drunk and lose more jobs!”
His hand flew out faster than she could duck, and landed flat against her face. Before she could recover, he slapped her again. Then his fist slammed into her jaw, and blood filled her mouth. This was the last straw for Karen. She grabbed her coat, and ran out of the apartment.
Now, finding herself standing in the church’s kitchen, she looked around in the dim light. She saw two plates of Christmas cookies covered with plastic wrap sitting on the kitchen counter. She threw them onto the floor, and stomped on them. She kept twisting her feet, grinding the cookies into flattened crumbs.
Karen hated God, and she hated Christmas and the twelve days following it. Now she was going to get even for all God had taken from her.
Then Karen stomped out of the church's kitchen. As she charged through the adjoining dining room, she swung her fist at a ceramic Christmas decoration sitting on a table. It hit the floor and broke into a hundred tiny pieces. The sound of the shattering earthenware made her feel good.
Using the red glow of the exit lights, Karen assaulted the wreaths and decorations on every door in the long church hallway. She pulled them down, and then carefully stepped on every single piece.
She picked up a small Christmas tree, and swung it against the large glass window of the church’s office. The glass practically exploded in one huge crash that seemed to roll through the entire building.
"Did you hear that, God?" Karen shouted. "Or are you still deaf?"
She turned and charged down another long hallway, destroying everything that looked like Christmas. Years of pent-up anger thundered against Christmas, and the loving God that it proclaimed. With her teeth clenched and tears rolling down her cheeks, Karen raged through the silence of God's house in the early morning hours of Epiphany Day.
When she came upon a ceramic nativity set, Karen began throwing each piece against the wall. Each ceramic figure exploded against the wall like a little bombs – each animal, each shepherd and wise man, even the holy family with the baby Jesus in the manger.
"God can't you hear anything?" she screamed. "Don't you even care about your own Son? Are you so comfortable up in heaven that you can't feel anything for the misery in this world you created?"
The silence that answered Karen was almost more than she could bear. "Do you even care that I hate you?" she pleaded against it.
Looking up, she saw a sign with one word printed on it - SANCTUARY. An arrow pointed the way to the church's worship space on the second floor. Karen kicked the small wooden table that had held the nativity scene, and sent it tumbling down the hallway. Then she started up the staircase to confront God in his own sanctuary.
As Karen pushed through a set of big wooden doors, a huge room, different from the rest of the church building, opened before her. Here silence hung in the air like a heavy fog. Large droplets of unspeaking fell upon Karen's anger. Thick carpeting hushed Karen's footsteps. And the immensity of the space seemed to soak up her thoughts before they could disturb the stillness.
A flicker of light caught Karen's eyes. Like a moth she was drawn to the front of the sanctuary, where two candles still burned. By now, Karen was sure that no one else was in the building, but somehow the movement of the tiny flames spoke of a presence. They hinted at the invisible.
Karen could almost hear tiny, flickering voices speaking of a much greater light. But before she could understand their meaning, Karen drowned them out with her own voice.
"O no you don't, God! You're not going to dupe me again with the trappings of Christmas. I've been sucker-punched by that stuff too many times to ever let that happen again. You either don't care, or you are dead. Either way, it's the same to me. I don't have to worry about you. I can do as I please, and you either won't, or can't, do anything about it."
To prove her point, Karen walked to a huge Christmas tree at the front of the sanctuary. She pushed against its branches, making the tree rock on its stand.
"What are you going to do about this, God?" she shouted as she pushed with all of her strength against the tree.
The tree fell with a crash across several choir pews. Karen stood back to admire the destruction which she had caused. Now she was convinced that God, if he even existed, was irrelevant to human life.
Before she could congratulate herself on the certainty of her insight, a small movement distracted her. Fear jolted her to attention, but it was quickly cancelled by a silly grin that danced across her face.
The movement she had noticed was that of a tiny mouse, walking along the top board of the manger that sat in front of the altar-table. She had not even noticed the manger earlier. She walked over to it now, more to see the mouse than the manger. But the mouse had already disappeared into the straw of the manger, and now all she could see was a plastic baby lying in the manger.
Suddenly, the manger, the altar-table, the cross and the whole wall behind it lit up with a bright light. Karen stared at the light, unbelieving. Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the light disappeared.
Karen looked around, to see if she had somehow accidentally thrown a light switch. But there were no light switches anywhere near her.
Then Karen heard something that sounded like a car-door closing outside the church. "Maybe the police heard that tree fall," she immediately thought to herself. "Noooo, come on Karen. Get a hold on yourself. That’s not the police. I'm in the middle of town, and there are always car doors opening and closing on the streets outside. So, relax. Nobody knows I'm here, not even God."
To reassure herself, Karen picked up a Christmas ball that had not broken when the Christmas tree fell. She took careful aim at the cross, and threw the ornament. With a loud "pop," the ball broke into hundreds of tiny pieces.
Karen liked the sound. So, she started hunting down other unbroken ornaments. And each one she found, she hurled at the cross.
Just as she tossed a red glass drum, a voice shouted from behind her. "What do you think you're doing?"
Karen whirled around to see who had caught her. As she did, the tiny drum smashed on the wall behind her.
A curly-haired, young man stood at the back of the sanctuary. "Did you make all that mess downstairs?" he asked her. "And what happened to that Christmas tree?"
Karen swallowed her fear and demanded, "Who are you?"
"I'm the custodian of this church," the young man answered. "Who are you?" he returned.
"None of your business," Karen answered.
"The heck it isn't!" he said. "I'm going to have to clean up the mess you made. So, I guess that makes it my business."
"It's God's house," Karen said, "so let God clean it up."
"Are you nuts," the custodian asked, "talking like that in here? And why are you tearing things up?"
"I'm not nuts," Karen insisted. "The nuts are the people who believe in God. They come here and say their prayers and sing their songs, and for what? God doesn't care about them. God doesn't care about any of us.”
"Boy are you wrong," the young man said. "God loves all of us, even crazy people like you."
"Tell me something," Karen interrupted him. "Did you just drive a car up here a minute ago? And did your car lights shine on those windows?" she asked as she pointed toward the big windows on the side of the sanctuary.
"Yeah," answered the custodian. "I drove back here to the church because I was afraid that I had forgotten to put out these candles, and I can see that it was a good thing that I did. So what does that have to do with God's love?"
"So, for about a millisecond I started to believe again in God. I saw a bright light that I thought was coming from the manger, but it was just the light from your headlights. I thought that maybe God was finally going to do something to let me know that he at least knows that I am alive. But I should have known better."
The young man walked closer to Karen, and his voice softened with compassion. "Maybe you don't believe it, but God not only knows that you are alive, but God loves you very much."
"No he doesn't," Karen said. "God hates me."
"O yeah, look at that!" the young man said as he pointed at the manger. The plastic baby was shaking its head. Actually, the whole plastic figure was shaking from side to side.
Karen looked at the figure hoping. "It's just a mouse under that thing. I saw it earlier crawling on the manger."
"Maybe it is a mouse moving the baby Jesus," the custodian said, "but how many times have you seen a mouse move the baby Jesus? And maybe it was my headlights that made the light that you saw, and maybe it wasn't. Maybe God wanted me to leave those candles burning so that I would have to come back here, or maybe I was just forgetful. It really doesn't matter. God can use things in this world to let us know how he feels about us. Right now, I think that God is using the baby Jesus to tell you that he does not hate you. Heck, I'm the one who is going to have to clean up the mess you made, and I don't even hate you!"
"Well, if God doesn’t hate me; then why did God let my husband get drunk and nearly break my jaw tonight?"
"Hey, I'm just the custodian here. Save the tough questions for one of our pastors. I only know that God loves every man, woman and child on this earth."
"I really do wish I could believe that," Karen said. "I really do."
Just then a light, even brighter than before, shined throughout the whole sanctuary. It lit up the manger, the altar-table, and the cross. It lit up the pulpit, the lectern, the pews and the whole vast space of the sanctuary. It made the fallen Christmas tree glisten and sparkle.
“See! There’s the light again,” Karen said. “Just another car.”
“That’s not car lights,” the custodian answered. “That’s something else. I’ve never seen it so bright in here.”
“You Christians are so gullible,” Karen said. “It’s just another car.”
The custodian walked over to one of the windows on the street side of the building. With considerable effort, he opened the large stained glass window and looked out.
“There are no cars out here,” he said. “Come see for yourself.”
Karen walked over to the window and looked out.
“Well the car’s gone already,” she replied.
“Yeah, but the light’s still here,” the custodian said as he looked back at the sanctuary.
Karen looked out the window again. Still no cars were anywhere in sight. Then she looked back at the light that seemed to be coming from the manger.
“Somebody must have hooked up a floodlight in there,” she stated matter-of-factly.
“Nope. I helped rig the lights for the special effects,” he said. “There are no lights in that manger. See for yourself. Do you see any electric cords? Can you find any light-bulbs? There are no batteries either, and no mirrors or anything else to produce the light coming from that manger. I don’t know what’s going on between you and God, lady, but that’s the real thing. If you don’t believe me, go over there and check it out.”
Karen took long strides walking back to the manger, eager to prove the custodian wrong. She froze a few feet from the manger.
“There’s a baby in the manger,” she said disbelieving her own words.
“That’s right,” the custodian agreed, “and no spotlights.”
“No,” she said. “There’s a real, live baby in the manger!”
“What?” he responded as he ran to the manger.
Just then the baby that was looking up at Karen started to cry. She automatically knelt down beside the manger and picked up the child to sooth it. She was immediately rewarded with a huge baby grin. Its beautiful dark eyes looked right at her, and its little hand reached up and touched Karen’s chin gently.
The light that now filled every nook and cranny in the sanctuary began to soften and to transform into the warm colors of a sunrise.
“O my God! It is a baby, a real baby!” the custodian said in amazement. “How did you get in here, little fellow? Where’s your mommy?”
“I know he wasn’t here a minute ago,” Karen insisted. “There was just a plastic doll in that manger! You saw it too, didn’t you? I’m not crazy, not really!”
“Lady, you may be crazy, but not about that. There was a plastic baby Jesus in that manger.”
“Well, you sure aren’t plastic, are you?” Karen said to the child who’s tiny fingers touched the bruise left by her husband’s fist. “He’s so beautiful! And his eyes, it’s like he is looking right into my soul.”
“O my God! O my God!” the custodian cried out as he dropped onto his knees. “That’s no ordinary baby!”
Karen looked at the custodian who now bowed his head to the floor, worshiping the child she held in her arms.
“What are you talking about? This is a baby, not…”
Karen couldn’t believe her eyes. The lifeless, plastic figure she now held in her arms was not the beautiful child that she had been holding. Part of her wanted to throw the plastic baby down, and another part wanted to hold on to the child that had looked so deeply into her soul. Gently and lovingly, she returned the plastic figure to the manger. Then she lowered herself to the floor to sit beside the inanimate figure.
“I didn’t just dream that, did I?” she asked. “That was a real baby, wasn’t it?”
“Lady, they don’t get any more real than that,” the custodian answered.
“He touched my chin,” Karen said remembering. “He looked into my eyes. He knew. He knew everything, and he cares.”
It was now the dawn of Epiphany Day, a day when two people were changed forever. The light that remained in the sanctuary blended with the light of a new day.
Questions for Meditation, Discussion or Preaching
Copyright 2020. Robert D. Ingram, 32746 Jourden Rd., Albany, Ohio 45710 (dr.bobingram@gmail.com). Used by permission.
