Stratton Davis was in his late twenties, working on his Masters degree at Boston College, in philosophy I think, but it may have been sociology. He and I took a class together, spring semester, 1990. At lunch one day he said to me, “You’re Presbyterian, is that right?”

I allowed as how that was correct.

He said, “Do you know what happened to my grandmother, because of you Presbyterians?”

I was almost afraid to ask, but I said, “Tell me.”

So he told me the story of his grandmother. She grew up in the 1920s, the fifth child of eleven in a Black family in rural Mississippi. It was not a good time for equal educational opportunity. (I looked up some statistics for 1930. That year there were about 28,000 Black youth, age 17, in Mississippi. The actual number enrolled for their senior year of high school was: 334. In 1930 80% of the Black population of Mississippi lived in rural counties. In those days of segregation a Black student could not attend a white school. Do you know how many public high schools for Black students Mississippi had, in rural counties, in 1930? There were two.)

When she was 14 years old, Stratton’s grandmother was given a scholarship to Mary Holmes College, in West Point, Mississippi. The school was founded by Presbyterians in 1892 “to extend the advantages of education to the daughters of the colored race.” It had a six-year curriculum, high school plus junior college. Much of the funding came from the Women’s Missionary Societies of Presbyterian churches in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky. Because of that education, Stratton’s grandmother grew up to become a school teacher in Tennessee; and thus her daughter, Stratton’s mother, would in her turn grow up with the advantages of education; and thus Stratton himself, in turn, was there at Boston College, working toward his Master’s degree.

Stratton Davis looked me in the eye and said, “My grandmother had a life, because of you Presbyterians.”

I Corinthians 13, Paul’s famous chapter about love, gets read at a lot of weddings. Yet it’s not really a romantic passage. Instead, it’s about the practical business of how to love another person in real life.

That’s important, because real life is mostly not so romantic. We expect life to be romantic, we expect that once we’ve found that breathless rush we will go on feeling that breathless rush “happily ever after.” But in real life, quite a lot of the time “happily ever after” doesn’t happen. It never happens automatically. It will only happen if we find the way to make it happen.

And Christmas is the same way, isn’t it? We expect it to happen, automatically, with a sense of miracle and wonder. The astonishing love of God, given to us. That feeling of hushed, heart-stopping reverence. Gifts, such special gifts, gifts that are not simply pleasant or fun, but gifts that bring delight and laughter to our souls because they reveal this deep truth, that we are beloved. God loves us, these people love us, and this one special person loves us: we are beloved with a love like we used to dream about, before real life burst our hopes with its horrid mocking voice: “You’ll never be loved like that!” Christmas is supposed to be the moment when our hearts sing out, “Yes, I am! I am beloved like that!” That’s what’s supposed to happen, at Christmas. But often it doesn’t. It never happens that way by itself. It will only happen if we find the way to make it happen.

God has provided the way to make it happen. It’s spelled out in I Corinthians 13.

If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love (I Corinthians 13:1-13).

The chapter is divided into three brief paragraphs. The first one, verses 1 to 3, asks, “What if I do great things? What if I have prophetic powers and deep understanding, great heroism amidst the flames, and achieve more than anybody else – but don’t have love. Is it worth it?” And it answers, “Nope. If I do not love, it adds up to nothing at all.”

The second paragraph, verses 4 to 7, gives love’s strong characteristics. They have to be strong. Life is difficult: sometimes quite painful, sometimes so tedious. Will your love be strong enough to overcome the dullness and the anguish? Only if you love the way I Corinthians 13 tells you, with strengths like these:

Love is patient and kind, Love is not jealous or boastful. It is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This world we live in is often jealous and arrogant, insisting on its own way, irritable and resentful when it doesn’t get it: but love has the strength of character to reject that attitude. Love has the patient endurance to bear all things, and especially: to believe all things.

Love believes all things.

Dr. David Thomas, professor at Saint Regis College in Denver, shared this story at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary in November of ’97. Over the years he and his wife Karen have provided a temporary home for a number of foster children.

He told the story of Monet, a five-year-old girl placed with them until she was two. A family had then adopted her. Three years later, that family told her she was going on a field trip; they dropped her off at a police station, and then drove away, never to see her again. Monet’s reaction was severe. She ended up in the Psychiatric Unit at Children’s Hospital in Denver. The authorities searched her records, found out that the Thomases had once been her foster family, and contacted them – not asking them to do anything, just to let them know what had happened to her. David and Karen Thomas went to the hospital, and found this five-year-old, once just the most energetic little girl, sitting rigid on the edge of the bed, eyes downcast, not moving a muscle, “frozen in deathful fear.”

Thomas said:

“She had lived in our family for almost all of her first two years. We were as much a part of her as she was part of us. Surely she would remember us. Of course, she would light up as we walked into her room. That was the nature of things.

“Only now there was cold silence. Her eyes turned inward toward the darkness. She knew we were at her side, but she showed no sign that we were ever with her. Gentle words bounced off the protective shield she had created around herself. I was stunned.

“After an hour we left. This was going to be very hard, much harder than we had imagined. All we knew was that she was now ours no matter what.

“The next day we brought our secret weapon, Merrilee, who is only eight months older than Monet. They had shared the first two years of their lives. They were foster sisters. We had adopted Merrilee two years before.

“When we entered her unit, Monet was crying. They had isolated her in a darkened room. We were asked to keep some distance while a staff person tried to quiet her. After ten minutes, little Merrilee could endure it no longer. She walked to the door of the room. In the gentlest voice I have ever heard, she began her mantra. ‘Monet, it’s all right. We will take care of you. I’m your sister. We want to take you home.’

“Over and over again, she repeated these words. After what seemed an eternity, Monet stopped crying. She slowly walked to Merrilee, who softly took her hand. The healing had begun.

“As we walked toward the door of the unit, I reached down to hold her hand. She refused. Instead she stopped, looked up to me, opened her arms and said through her tears, ‘Carry me, Daddy.’ ” (David Thomas, “Will You Ever Leave Me?” Louisville Presbyterian Seminary, 11/13/1997).

Love believes all things. Today Monet has a life, because David and Karen Thomas believed in the power of God’s love.

In the third paragraph, verses 8 through 13, Paul notes that our knowledge and our prophecy – which is to say, what we know about God and what we say about God – these are incomplete and imperfect: but the time will come when all will be revealed, all will be fulfilled, all will be satisfied and overflowing in the goodness of the Lord.

When I was a boy, Paul says, I lived my life with all the maturity of a child: which isn’t bad, but it lacks a lot of comprehension, depth, and perseverance. There’s a lot to be said for growing up.

It’s harder to share your heart with someone when all you can see is a distorted reflection in a murky mirror, or a vague image through a dark glass: that’s better than nothing, but you kind of need to see their smiles and their tears, and feel the comfort of their hand on your shoulder. There’s a lot to be said for seeing face to face.

I should say a word about mirror technology. Our modern day mirrors depend on having the ability to make glass sheets that are perfectly flat on both sides. You put a silver coating on one side of the glass, you put a frame around it, and you have made a mirror that provides a clarity of reflection that would astound the ancient world.

Because the ancient world had mirrors, but they did not have the ability to make flat sheets of glass. Most often a mirror was simply a piece of steel, polished up as polished as you could make it. It was not stainless steel, which would not get invented until the 1800s, but in the time of Jesus ancient smiths knew how to make steel from iron and carbon. The finest steel went into swords, and small amounts went into high-quality tools; and some of the not-very-good steel got used to make mirrors. They would rust and discolor, and you’d have to scrub it with sand to get the rust off, often leaving micro-scratches. The image of yourself that you’d see would not be too clear.

Alternately, mirrors were sometimes made of thick dark glass, poured into a mold so that gravity would make it flat on the top. Glassmaking as a technical skill had been practiced for at least 2000 years before the time of Jesus; glassmakers knew how to craft a piece of glass the size of your hand, and you could see a dark image of yourself in that mirror.

We are more grown up than we were as children, Paul tells us: but we’re not yet grown up all the way. We see more clearly than we once did: but we still don’t see face to face. So often it feels like we’re trying to see what’s real by looking in a dark glass mirror that’s shadowy and distorted.

The Bluegrass Alliance for the Mentally Ill is located over in Lexington. Dr. Angela O’Malley, the president of this group, says she never expected to be part of a group that works with the mentally ill. But her own daughter fell victim, at age twelve, to schizophrenia. It was a very severe case. The medical professionals indicated there was no hope. Their heart-rending advice, offered with all the compassion they could give, was: “Place her in a good institution, where she will receive adequate care. Say goodbye. Then do your best to go on about your life.”

She did not follow that advice.

It took eight years. Eight years of experimental treatments and failures. Eight years of frustration and anxiety. Eight years of not knowing if the doctors were ever going to come up with the right answer, with the right treatment, with the right dosage. Eight years of refusing to give up when the doctors said,”Really, we’ve done all we can do.”

Eight years. And then they found the right combination.

Her daughter is now 25. She’s in college at the University of Kentucky. She missed out on all the normal high school events. There are still some ragged moment, some adjustments that have to be worked out as she goes along. But: she has a life. That young woman has a life, because Angie O’Malley would not give up, and devoted eight years of struggle to making it happen.

Love believes all things. What if it had taken 18 years, instead? Love believes all things.

What if you were that fourteen-year-old, trapped in poverty in rural Mississippi? What if you were that five-year-old, abandoned on the steps of a Denver police station? What if you were that twelve-year-old in Lexington, suddenly baffled as schizophrenia left you unable to know your own mind?

Someone believed in those children. Those children got a life, because someone believed in them. Why is that? Because love believes all things.

None of those miracles will take place this Christmas. That’s okay, because those three miracles have already happened. It’s good to hear about miracles that other people got to experience and feel. But what we need this Christmas is the chance to take part in new miracles that we will get to experience and feel.

Who will work miracles this Christmas? God will. God will do it, all over again: the love of the Lord will shine through the heavens, the splendor of God’s glory will come to this earth, will come to dwell in human flesh, will come this Christmas to dwell in the human flesh of human hearts like yours and mine. Yet when we see the light of God, mostly we see it like a candle flame reflected in a dull mirror, like a guiding star that you might miss, because when you look via the dark glass of our world, things get blurry.

The love of God is real, for schizophrenic twelve-year-olds, for betrayed five-year-olds, for impoverished fourteen-year-olds: but they might not be able to see it. Our own eyes may not have suffered quite so much from this world’s darkness, but we still only see God’s glory dimly, for the dark glass sometimes creates an obscurity that is eight years deep, or more. It can be frustrating or scary or just plain hard to respond to the light we think we’ve seen. How can we be sure? The Bible itself declares, “Our knowledge is imperfect.” We can’t be sure. But we can believe we have seen the light of God through the dark glass. Love believes it: love believes all things!

Angela O’Malley tried to see a miracle reflected in the dark glass. Somehow she saw the glory of God touching someone in great need. She believed it. And the miracle happened. And someone got a life.

David Thomas, Karen Thomas, and Merrilee Thomas looked for the reflection of some miraculous grace in the dark glass. They saw the glory of God touching someone in great need. They believed it. And the miracle happened. And someone got a life.

Some unknown Presbyterian women, some of them from here in Kentucky, looked through the dark glass. They saw the glory of God touching someone whose name they would never know, who turned out to be Stratton Davis’s grandmother. They believed it. And the miracle happened. And someone got a life.

Do you want a miracle this Christmas? You can have one. Even though the looking glass of this world is often quite dark, look hard until you see someone in great need. Love that person. Love them enough to give them: a life. Open your heart to envision the glory of God transforming that person’s life. Let the love of Jesus Christ move you to give with the selflessness of the Presbyterian Women who gave to provide an education for children they would never meet. Let the love of Jesus Christ move you to endure, to bear all things even when it takes years for it to happen. Let the love of Jesus Christ move you right into the midst of the heartbreak: for that’s where you get the chance to hear the “Carry me, Daddy” miracle taking place.

Right about then your own heart will feel it: God’s wondrous love, for you. And you will sing, “Yes I am, I am beloved like that!”

It would take a miracle, wouldn’t it? Let the love of Jesus Christ move you to believe it. Love believes all things! Believe it, children of God! Believe it.