(Note: This article was written some years ago when I was serving as senior minister to a large congregation.  It is intended to use the language of faith to deliver the promise of hope).  

In the mid-forties, we lived in a four room garage apartment, which is simply an apartment over a garage. 

I do not think much about those times when there was little: few gifts, not much money, what seemed like limited options because of the circumstances of the time.  This particular Christmas it did not appear we would be having a tree. For a small child, that was like not having Christmas at all. 

But one day, Granny came to be with us for the holidays.  Granny must have felt my sadness, and so we trekked to the woods just behind our house to search out a Christmas tree.  There we cut down a small cedar tree.

Bringing it up that long flight of stairs, we placed it on a homemade stand in the corner. Strung with popcorn and handmade paper ornaments, it became, for me, the prettiest Christmas tree I think I had ever seen.  Certainly, it was nothing to compare with today’s ornately filled trees, but for me it brought a joy and a fulfillment that for a while I wasn’t sure we would have that year.

“The fullness of time” has a way of always breaking in on us.  God came at Christmas and does so over and over in wonderful and fresh ways through the Grace of His presence in others.

So a tiny tree, with simple ornaments, standing in a corner of a small cottage, becomes the symbol of “the fullness of time”.  That grandmother with arthritic hands who strung the popcorn and helped make the paper ornaments was a part of  “the fullness of time.”

This year it will come again at our house and yours.  Certainly not in the ways that it has come before, but “the fullness of time” has it’s own way of breaking in upon us.  Especially now is it welcome!