A Christmas Story

Note: the story that follows was written quite a while ago by a good friend, Herman de Jong. He has passed on now, where, in heaven above, he's in rapture by the pure, perfect music of Christmas.
Since it was originally written in Dutch, I've translated and adapted it for this Blog.


“From Heaven Above”

It happened a long time ago and far away: 1944, in Holland. I was 12, and it was the day before Christmas. My best friend was Johnny who had become my neighbor a few months earlier. Our parents became friends too, even though the Lefferts were Roman Catholics and my parents were Reformed.

Johnny had invited me to come to early mass with him on Christmas Day. I wanted to go, of course, and begged my parents for permission. But my father didn’t like the idea. To be friends was okay, but to attend each other’s church was more than friends had the right to expect from each other. Mother finally persuaded Dad to let me go, since I would be back in time to attend our own church service.

At five o’clock on Christmas morning, Johnny and I ran through the flurrying snow. Johnny was wearing a new pair of high shoes for the special occasion, while I wore my ordinary wooden shoes; Mom said they’d be warmer. Since the snow packed well this morning, we decided to see who could pack the most snow under his shoes. We slowed down, and carefully, step by step, we tried to get as much to stick as possible. I kept winning, since snow sticks better to wood than to leather.

But Johnny didn’t like losing. He kept trying harder and harder, until it dawned on him that I was winning because of my klompen. “I could easily beat you if I had klompen too,” he said. I didn’t agree, of course. In fact, I challenged him to give me his shoes and I’d show him I could still beat him.

So it happened that on the way to early mass, two cold but proud little fellows sat down in the snow to exchange their footwear. But before we could continue the Christmas Day competition, a large Catholic family caught up with us. One of the girls called out, “Hey, Johnny, you better hurry, ‘cause the service starts in five minutes and you still have to change to your choir robe. We’re late too, ‘cause Mommy overslept.”

We ran the rest of the way till the cathedral loomed straight ahead through the early morning shadows. Black figures hurried over the white snow and then under the yellow glow of the gas lanterns that lined the sidewalk. “You have to go through the big door,” panted Johnny, “I have to go through the door of the sacristy ‘cause I have to sing in the choir.”

I followed the crowd through the big doors and landed in the narthex of the packed church. Behind an ornate railing stood a group of Protestant visitors, jostling each other for the best view of what was to come.

As for myself, I stood close to the entrance and watched people dip their hands in a little bowl and then quickly make the sign of the cross. Without thinking, I decided to participate too, but the tall man with a terribly long nose (I can still see the drip hanging at its end) hissed at me: “Keep your hands out of there, you’re not Catholic, are you?” I have always wondered whether “Mr. Nose” was Catholic or Protestant.

Thoroughly frightened, I quickly pulled back among the visiting Protestants and wormed my way gradually to the railing. Just in time too. A Santa Claus type stood before the altar and bowed so low that his nose must have nearly touched the floor. But I didn’t see Johnny anywhere. All of a sudden I remembered that he was still wearing my clogs. At least his feet were warm; my toes in Johnny’s icy shoes were freezing. I wanted to jump up and down to warm them a bit, but the memory of “Mr. Nose” kept me quietly standing in place.

I almost jumped, though, when the organ suddenly started. The music was terribly loud; no wonder--I was standing right under the pipes. The people in the sanctuary rose and began to sing. I didn’t recognize the tune, but I remember clearly what a tremendous impression that music made on me. The sound seemed to climb along the whited walls, higher and higher, only to cascade down again and rejoin the leading melody. I stood entranced, and I shivered, more from the music, I think, than from the cold.

That must’ve been my first experience of beauty—an aesthetic experience, as they call it. I don’t remember much of the mass itself. I didn’t understand the strange language nor the strange rituals among what I thought of then as the Santa Claus figures. Besides, I was too cold, and the whole service seemed much too long. It was what happened toward the end of it that I have remembered so clearly through all these years.

The organ played again, very softly now, and then a clear girl-soprano voice rang through the cathedral. I noticed that all around me people began to listen with rapt attention to the beautiful melody of “From heaven above to earth I come.”

I held my breath. The pure, delicate voice of the singer seemed to fill that whole immense cathedral. It seemed to float through space like a fine-bodied swallow. It bounced off the walls and as the notes went higher it seemed to disappear into the vaulted dome and out into the outside air until it became an angel choir of glorious music. I don’t know how to explain it exactly; it’s hard to find words for such feelings. But it filled me with such great gladness that I wanted to run with the shepherds over the hills around Bethlehem, arms flailing like a windmill, faster and faster, to see Jesus, my Jesus.

After the service I waited for Johnny at the door of the sacristy. “How did you like it?” he asked. He didn’t wait for my answer but pulled me inside. Beneath a candle-lit statue of Mary we exchanged our footwear. I followed his example when he crossed himself. “You didn’t need to do that,” said my friend, “you aren’t Catholic, are you?”

A couple of days later Johnny was terribly sick with pneumonia. He had kicked off my klompen and in his wet socks had followed the bishop into church. And there he had stood, on the stone floor, throughout the long service.

I moped around the house, feeling guilty about Johnny’s illness and resentful that my best friend had to get sick during Christmas vacation. We prayed for him at mealtimes, and I noticed that Dad’s prayers became increasingly more urgent.

One day, Mrs. Lefferts, pale and fatigued from many nights of interrupted and uneasy sleep, stopped by. Johnny wanted me to come over. “Is Johnny getting better, then?” I asked eagerly. Softly she answered, “With God all things are possible. Please come along quickly.”

I didn’t know what to say at first when I got there. Johnny was so weak; he could hardly speak. After a while I told him about the girl’s solo and how beautiful I thought it had been. “That was no girl,” whispered Johnny, “listen to this.” As he began to sing, very softly, I heard the same voice, the same melody. I couldn’t believe it. When he finished there was mischief gleaming in his eyes. “Well?” he asked. His voice was so soft now, I hardly heard him. But I tried to tell him something then of what I had felt during his singing that Christmas morning.

When I finished, he reached out a thin, pale hand. Impulsively and self-consciously at the same time, I took his hand in mine, and I whispered that I prayed for him and that I was sure Jesus would make him well again. I felt the pressure from his hand as he whispered back, “From heaven above to earth he came….”

Jesus did make Johnny well again. We stayed friends for a long time till finally we moved too far away from each other. But I’ve never forgotten Johnny. And I’ve often thought that the whole Christmas event became real to me in that breathless moment when I followed that graceful swallow far beyond the cathedral. It was at that moment that I knew without the slightest doubt that Jesus came as a Child for me and that as a Man he had to die for me. And when in bygone years I sometimes had to struggle through thoughts and experiences that shook my faith, I always returned through my memory to that place and to that moment when my white-knuckled hand hung on to the wrought-iron railing, and a gentle Savior made me hear again that pure girl-soprano voice: “From heaven above to earth I come!”