UBC Advent Devotional

Meditation Twenty-Seven Friday, December 23 Ms. Drusilla and the Donkey Christmas Eve...even as I write those words I am taken back to my childhood to one of the sweetest memories I hold—one of those memories so real that I can still see, taste, and sense its realities these many years later. For most of my childhood and early adolescent years, I joined my father and my older sister for visits to several of our church members who lived in nursing homes or were unable to leave their homes to celebrate Christmas at the church.

I loved the time I shared with my father and sister. Riding across the town, in-and-out of dwellings as we spread Christmas cheer, often picking up little treats along the way. For many years, my sister and I even sang a song or two, probably more “Jingle Bells” and “Rudolph” than “Silent Night,” but it really didn’t matter.

As the Christmas Eve afternoon progressed, we began to anticipate the final stop before going to the church to prepare for Christmas Eve worship. The home was that of Ms. Drusilla King. We started visiting her home because Ms. Drusilla’s mother was homebound. I was still quite young when her mother passed on to her eternal dwelling, but Ms. Drusilla insisted that we continue to make our stop at her home, even if she would shortly join us at the Christmas Eve worship service. Our visits had become a central part of her Christmas celebration and, the truth is, my sister and I couldn’t imagine Christmas without a visit to her home.

We loved walking into her home. It was a small house packed full of love and fried apple pies (we always took a plate home on Christmas Eve). I particularly remember the year Ms. Drusilla caught me gazing at her Christmas tree and invited me to pick an ornament, any ornament on the tree was mine for the taking. The donkey made of cloth that I picked that Christmas Eve still hangs on my tree today...the most cherished of my Christmas ornaments.

As I look back on Christmas Eve, I sense that the season came alive to me on those visits. We were living into a vital part of the Christmas story, the offering and receiving of hospitality.

I’m not sure why I picked the donkey, but I can now imagine Mary riding atop it as Joseph knocked on the doors of distant family members, seeking shelter for Mary and her soon to be born baby. While there was no room for the holy family in the Inn, the gift of hospitality was extended by someone who had an empty manger room...it might have seemed like a simple gesture to the manger owners, but what a gift to God, to the world.

Ms. Drusilla joined her mother in eternity this past October, entering into what must be God’s greatest gift of hospitality. Though she is gone from our earthly company, I hang my donkey on the tree and remember...remember the fun I had with my father and sister, remember the warmth of Christmas love shared, remember the joy of offering and receiving the Christmas Eve gift of hospitality.

Rusty Edwards