Imogene Herdman and the Best Christmas Ever

““O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.”
”

Two weeks ago I had a nearly sleepless night. With book edits on my mind, end of year school stuff, and a myriad of other details, my mind was a carnival. And not a fun carnival. But as the fitful night progressed, the thought that rose above all the other pressures was surprising. It was December 11 and I did not have any decorations up yet and I felt like an absolute failure as a human being. 

While most of my friends and family were successfully decking the halls my home was drab and dusty. When morning light came, more reasonable thoughts began to flood in and with them a desire to reorient my heart and mind around Christmas. 

With the Pinterest and Instagram Christmas photos working overtime to curate the “perfect” Christmas image for us, we need to be more and more intentional if we want to push past all the pressures and experience the joy, peace, and rest that comes from cultivating the expectancy of the presence of Jesus and the hope of His return.

After the sleepless night of Dec. 11, I began to formulate some thoughts and meditate on truths in order to shift my focus. Every time I felt behind on my Christmas prep I started praying for something different, for a new perspective. A funny collection of memories and thoughts began to form like a little talisman in my harried mind.

It was the story of Anna and Simeon that first came to mind. I have often glossed over these two characters found in the book of Luke. Simeon, a righteous and devout Jewish man, and Anna, a prophetess who had likely not left the temple for many decades, were in awe and overwhelmed to behold the baby Jesus. They knew the ancient prophecies well and were waiting with eager expectancy. 

The more I thought of this elderly pair, the more I was astonished by their faith and their ability to recognize the true Messiah. When you fast forward in the gospel story and find the majority of the religious people of Israel calling out “Crucify!” The beauty of their immediate worship and delight over the baby Jesus is striking. 

Anna and Simeon had clearly cultivated a heart that was oriented toward the true things of God. They had soft hearts that were anticipating the coming Christ child. I believe the story of Anna and Simeon are there to remind us of two things: we must be cultivating a spirit of anticipation and if we don’t, we are in peril of hardening our hearts and missing Jesus just as they did when he arrived the first time. We will miss Him in our Christmas celebrations and we will miss Him in our day to day lives. Pondering ways I could cultivate anticipation and expectation in my life, a special memory surfaced.

I teach grade five and six at a Christian school. Last year I decided to begin an experiment with my Bible class. The idea was that we would use the Bible Project videos to engage in an overview of all the books of the Old Testament and time it so that when December came with the season of Advent, we would be ready for the birth of Jesus. We began with Genesis in September and all I asked of them was to write down any key words, phrases, and verses they found and discuss it as a class when the nine-ish minute video was over. 

The thing that I asked them to look for before they started each video was Jesus. Listen for clues of the coming King of kings. Attune your ears to the prophecies that can only land on one person. Watch for the arrows pointing to the consummation of the ages.

There were definitely Bible classes that fell flat and, yes, I absolutely skipped the Song of Solomon. But I was also delighted by what they saw and the callbacks they noticed. They groaned when Israel messed up again. They cheered when there was a king who did “right in the eyes of the Lord.” Surprisingly, the book of Job elicited the most profound conversation I had with the class the entire year. But the moment that made me feel like perhaps the experiment was working happened in early November. A student, and not one that I would have expected, sidled up to my desk to talk to me privately.

He leaned in and asked, “Mrs. Heinrichs, how much longer till Jesus?” I didn’t know exactly what he meant. Looking at my quizzical brow, he said, “In the Bible Project. How much longer till we get to Jesus? I like these Old Testament videos but I’m just really looking forward to seeing Jesus finally come.”

As he stared at me with big, serious eyes I did some fast blinking and took a deep breath so I wouldn’t horrify him by crying and said, “Me too, buddy. He’s coming soon.”

Everyone in my classroom knew how the story ended. They had grown up hearing about the birth, life, and death of Jesus but there seemed to be something special and different about a group of people collectively looking forward to something they knew about but had forgotten its significance. Looking back into the Old Testament, whether reading or watching, to be reminded is a powerful tool and must have been one of the things Anna and Simeon were continually doing. But they had to be doing more than that. They had to be keeping their hearts open and soft. Their ears and eyes were saturated with hope.

If you have never read the Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson, I will give you a quick synopsis. As a country church is preparing for their Sunday school Christmas pageant, the Herdmans, the baddest, meaneset, roughest kids in town, end up being all the leads in the nativity story. 

The mom who is heading it up begins directing the motley crew with much trepidation but as she realizes that the unchurched Herdmans are genuinely intrigued by the story of Jesus’ birth, their shenanigans become much more tolerable. She just rolls with it and honestly answers the questions posed by the Herdmans. She doesn’t even get in a flap when they want to beat the crap out of the bad guy, Herod. 

No matter how many times I have read it, I usually start to lose it around the time the three Herdman wise men come tromping down the aisle toward the manger scene with the ham that had come from their Christmas hamper. Evidently, they felt that some oils they couldn’t pronounce didn’t cut it for the King of kings. So they brought a ham; probably what was going to be their Christmas dinner.

As the church sings Silent Night to end the program Imogene Herdman, the tough older sister of the Herdman clan stands as a disheveled Mary, looks at the doll who was supposed to be the newborn Jesus and at the crowd singing, and simply cries. This story was new to her. Unlike the congregation, the raw beauty of the incarnation had hit Imogene with all its life-altering power. “Christmas just came over her all at once, like a case of chills and fever. And so she was crying, and walking into the furniture.”

I’m not hoping to walk into furniture this year and I know I can’t conjure up tears like Imogene Herdman but I can look back at what has been done throughout the ages as well as in my own life and I can pause to adore Him. He came to shine light into the darkness of our hearts and all we can do is weep before Him in relief and thanksgiving. Whatever your Christmas looks like this year, turkey or no turkey, family or no family, gifts or no gifts, it doesn’t need to be perfect because the best Christmas has already happened and we just need to remember. 

As we go into Christmas tomorrow and into a new year I pray we will delight, behold, and rest in the King that has come.