THE BODY OF CHRIST
A Christmas Eve Devotion
for December 24, 2003
copyright by Wayne M. Anson
As Katia ran from her town, grabbing the hands of Latif and her mother Karis, she breathed, "Our God reigns," and, in the next step, "Come Lord Jesus." She did not care if he came as a miracle or as the final judgment, just, "Come, Lord Jesus!"
Here she was at last escaping, but this was not how she dreamed.
Escaping was to have been slipping away quietly down an unguarded alley at night. Escaping was to have been hiding in the bed of a UN relief truck or whisked away by a soldier, maybe a friend of her father's sent like a spy to guide them through the front lines pretending they were his captives being carried away to a concentration camp only to be released when all was clear.
But running for their lives! Escaping a murderous rampage! Escaping because the war opened a window and shoved them out. This was never the escape they had planned.
Escaping with an old man who could not run fast, who could not be left behind to die, this was not how they planned to escape.
Katia thought about the things in her escape bag. A pencil. Some paper. Family pictures. Her last gifts from Nanna. Two shirts. Four socks. Another pair of pants already too short. These were the kind of things in the pack. But items for survival. Food to eat! These she never dreamed to pack. Sure food was scarce, but she did not have even a cracker or dried prune. She was without a cup. No knife. No fork. No plate or pan. No matches or candles.
Candles! Only then did Katie remembered that she had run, run so quickly, she left the four advent candles burning.
Only then did she let out a little moan, thinking of the beautiful white candle a UN soldier had given her when she showed him her wreathe of glass bottles, when she told him about the bullet shot and God’s voice. A whole pure white candle. Her Christ candle to be lit after the midnight candle service tonight. Whole, pure, and white like Jesus, the light of the world.
Katia's heart sunk with disappointment.
Why did they have to run today?
Why did they have to run on Christmas Eve?
"O Jesus, come quickly," she prayed. " Jesus. Jesus!"
Suddenly Latif stumbled and Katia focused again on the world around her.
Unbelievable! They had been running for two hours. It hardly seemed possible, but the sun was low in the sky and Latif was - well he looked like he was not able to move but still he was running, slowly, but running.
All of a sudden Katia noticed the people were leaving the road, going up the hill on the right. She could not see any soldiers, only a few cars stopped in a ditch and people making tents of blankets, lighting cook fires, or just dropping into the grass, laying there too exhausted to move.
"Come," said Karis as she led Katia and Latif up the hill to a unclaimed spot of ground. "Come. Rest. I will look for water. I will look for food, but you two rest."
"Here," called Latif pulling an old leather wine skin from his small pack. "Take this. With it you can carry water."
Soon Karis returned with water from a stream. As she gave Katia and Latif a drink she explained, "No one has food in the whole camp except one lady- a young grandmother with her daughters, one son- in- law, and grandchildren.
"She has a large bag of flour and some oil which she carried in the trunk of her car for weeks. Now she and her daughters are mixing them with water and cooking little round cakes over the open fire while her son- in -law comes back and forth bringing wood to keep the charcoal burning.
"And they are sharing one cake with each person who comes!
"Come! Let us see if there is one left for us."
Katia, Karis, and Latif joined the little line next to the grandmother's car. An old grandmother in front of them stepped forward and said, "May I have one please," and bowed low when the daughter laid a small cake into her hand.
"Please, have you another?," asked Karis pointing to Katia and Latif.
"No," the sad eyed raven haired daughter shook her head.
" Just one?" asked Katia’s mother.
"I am sorry."
Karis' head and shoulders dropped as she, offering her arm to Latif, turned and walked heavily away.
Katia stood there staring!
" No! This cannot be. Jesus, what can we do? Oh Jesus! What can we do?
No bread.
No Christmas.
No Christ candle.
"O come Lord Jesus!"
Katia's face was so blank you could have looked straight through it into eternity.
When the husband of the raven haired woman came to join them, Katia barely noticed. She just stared as into vacant air till suddenly she saw Alija, the raven haired women, pull a little round cake from inside her sweater and offer it to her husband.
Katia could not help herself. She stared right at cake with her mouth wide open.
"Here, Aladdin. I saved it for you. You must eat. I can not live if you die. Please Aladdin eat."
Aladdin with two hands lifted the bread toward his mouth then paused. His compassionate eyes caught Katia's vacant staring face and open mouth then momentarily shifted to the distance.
Gently, he stepped toward her.
As if Jesus himself had moved her hand by cradling it in his own, Katia involuntarily slid her palm forward toward him. Aladdin, the Muslim, like a priest at mass lifted the bread, broke it, and placed both pieces in her hand.
"The Body of Christ," the angels said.
"God with us," Katia replied.
"... and please give one to the old man," Aladdin was saying. "He is my uncle."
The Body of Christ in the hand of a stranger. What a perfect way to celebrate Christmas Eve - Jesus lifted up, the Body of Christ!
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