By Pastor Mike McVey
Minister – First Methodist Church, Fairfield
ACS Chaplain – United State Coast Guard, Station Galveston

My Grandad used to love telling me a Christmas story from his childhood around this time each year.  I would like to pass this story on to you and your family as well!

The year was 1950 and it was Christmas Day.  My Grandad, Mike Wade, was 11 years old at the time and eagerly awaiting that moment of being able to open Christmas presents.  You see that year all Mike had asked for was a Lionel Diesel Switch Engine for his model train set.

World War II had ended five years prior and all the toy companies were back to manufacturing toys for the Holiday season.  Lionel was the leading toy train company in the world and in 1950 they introduced their new “Diesel Switch Engine #6220.”  In the Lionel Catalog there was a picture of the engine roaring down the rails, advertised as going both forward and reverse!  The engine had a bell that would ring as it went around the track and a headlight that would light up!  It was the gift to have that Christmas of 1950!

Mike had given subtle hints to his parents about the toy train.  He wrote his letter to Santa; he reminded his mother, he mentioned it to his father, and he pestered his grandparents.  Now Christmas Day had arrived, and he eagerly tore into the packages.  But his elation soon gave way to disappointment, because the model train was in none of the brightly wrapped boxes.

Now, Mike was taught not to show disappointment, especially when it came to receiving presents.  He smiled and said thank you for all the wonderful things he had received, but it must have been obvious that he was a little down.  His dad Louis came up to him and said, “Did you open all your presents son?”  Mike nodded. “Did you have a good Christmas?” Louis asked.  Mike nodded again.  And then Louis gave that smile that only a father can give when they are about to give a surprise.  “Why don’t you go open the hall closet and see if anything was left in there.”  With a flash Mike sprang to the hall closet and threw open the door.  To his joyous surprise, there on the top shelf, was the orange and blue box of a Lionel 6220 Locomotive.  His Christmas was completed, and a lasting memory was made.

Not all Christmas’s conclude with such a Norman Rockwell ending.  For many in this world there is little to open on Christmas day.  But perhaps that is because our expectations should be measured differently.  What do you expect to find around the Christmas Tree this year?  Or even better, what do you expect to find within your heart this Christmas Season?

The world could never have expected for its Savior to come in the form of a babe in a Manger, and yet that is exactly how it happened!  Perhaps our expectations of Christmas should be less upon our worldly material lists and more on the spiritual wonders that God can perform if we allow him.  As the Gospel of John states, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

What I’m trying to say is, for this Christmas, what if we expected the truly miraculous to happen?  Because it will, I assure you!  Christ has come and saved us all from the evils of this world!  What is more miraculous than that!

By the way, in the Christmas of 2020 (the final Christmas I would spend before my Grandad entered God’s Kingdom in November of 2021), I purchased an old Lionel 6220 Diesel Engine on eBay.  I took it to his house, and we ran it around and around on his train layout.  It made the story come to life and is a memory I will treasure forever.

Expect the unexpected this Christmas my friends, because Christ dwells among us.

Pastor Mike McVey
(P.S.  If you would like contact or receive Pastor Mike’s weekly newsletter simply email him at pastormike@fumcfairfield.org)