“Forms Are Bending Low”

For three weeks, my youngest son and I had been touring. David assisted me as I performed my one-man show: “Saint Nicholas Speaks!” Dressed in a red robe, a miter, and carrying a staff, I presented the real Christmas pastor behind the tradition that has become Santa Claus.

College chapels were our favorites. Such enthusiastic audiences! Now it was Christmas Eve. Down to our last performance. It was a rest home on the edge of the city.

As usual I got dressed in an unheated closet, a makeshift dressing room. Peeping into the chapel, I saw 160 senior citizens, most in wheelchairs, all of their heads as white as snow.

A nurse introduced me. My son played the Handel fanfare and I began my regal procession into the sea of elderly residents. With practiced enthusiasm I launched into the story of St. Nicholas, coloring my words, animating my story with gestures.

That’s when I noticed that half my audience had already gone to sleep.

I turned up the volume. I walked into the midst of the crowd. Nothing helped. One gentleman actually snored out loud. So I cut the monologue short, had a prayer and made ready to leave with at least some dignity for a failed actor.

That’s when a 92-year old woman waved me over. “Picture” she said. “May I have a picture with you?”

I was still seeing spots from the flash when I heard a chorus of pleas. “I want a picture too.”

Fifty seven pictures later, the room had about emptied out. And that was good. My knees were about given out as well.

One lady still sat alone in the corner. She just grimaced and stared at me. I strode over, clasped her hand and inquired, “Would you like to have your picture taken with old St. Nicholas?”

At that she burst into tears, sobbing how she’d lost her husband, was new here, and missed her own home. My beard was wet with her tears. We hugged and prayed and talked of better days.

I made it to the hallway, was heading for my car, when a resident said, “Will you

come this way? Some couldn’t get out to see you. Will you linger for a few more minutes?

So down the hall I went. We were ushered into a dozen rooms to stand at the side of the bedridden to have a picture taken.

“You going to see old Sinclair?” one asked.

“By all means” I said.

Sinclair lived at the end of the hall. When I strode into his room he was grinning up at me from the most contorted, doubled over position I’d ever seen. Nearly blind, barely able to speak, the man didn’t look at all that old. “Sinclair” I said, “Merry Christmas!” and his face lit up like a 250 watt bulb.

Now it was obvious Sinclair was the biggest sports fan there ever was. His room was papered with sports heroes, schedules, baseball paraphernalia, team sweatshirts, and such. I took his hand and leaned close for the usual flash picture.

Sinclair mumbled something like “Sanks yoot” which I took to mean “Thank you.” And then he pulled me closer and said something that puzzled me.

“Forms are bending low” he said quite clearly.

“Yes” I agreed. “Forms are bending low.”

“Time to go!” I chirped, and headed for my car with my son. I felt healthy, glad I could walk. Never did winter air smell so invigorating. And for the next few hours I couldn’t get Sinclair’s face and words out of my mind. “Forms are bending low.”

The night of the Christmas Eve service we stood to sing “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” and when we got to the second stanza I suddenly knew.

“And ye beneath life’s crushing load/Whose forms are bending low/Who toil along the climbing way/With painful steps and slow/Look now! For glad and golden hours/Come swiftly on the wing/O rest beside the weary road/And hear the angels sing.”

Sinclair, I understand you now. Life is so hard. Harder for you than for me. But you have hope. And you understand better than anyone that God who formed the universe took shape among us…to hurt with us…to take on sin and decay and death…and to rise above it to give us hope!

Yes, forms are bending low.

Even God has come down to us in Christ. He’s become one of us that we might become one of his. And the hinge of history, of my life and yours, is on a stable in Bethlehem.

This article was taken from “Soul Food”, a column in Moody Magazine written by Stephen M. Crotts, Director of the Carolina Study Center in Jamestown, NC.