Becoming real human beings

In the seasonal story, The Nutcracker and the King of Mice, the Nutcracker awakens and marches his army of toy wooden soldiers into battle with the mice. In the end, the Nutcracker turns into a prince. The idea of wooden soldiers coming to life is a metaphor of what can happen because of God entering our world. Jesus' birth was God's signal that God had come to change our woodenness into true humanity.

O. Henry, in his short story The Last Leaf, tells of two elderly women, Sue and Joanna—artists who share a studio apartment in Greenwich Village. Late in November, pneumonia swept through the city. Joanna took ill, and the doctors gave her a one-in-ten chance of survival. The doctor added, as he told Sue the news, 'Her only chance is to want to live. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well.'

One evening in the studio, while Sue was sketching and Joanna was covered in her sick bed, Sue heard Joanna counting, '12…11…10…9; then 8…7,' almost together. 'What is it?' asked Joanna.

'They're falling faster now. Three days ago, there were almost a hundred leaves. There are only five left now on the ivy vine across the way. When the last leaf falls, I must go, too. I've decided.' Sue chided her for her silliness and talked her into closing her eyes till morning.

Later that night, Sue shared the news with Mr. Behrman, an old painter who lived on the floor beneath them. A failure in art himself, Old Behrman had a blank canvass on an easel in his room that had remained white for twenty-five years. He had always dreamed of painting a masterpiece but never had. He and Sue looked out the window at the vine, only two leaves left, and a beating rain and fierce gusts of wind were tearing at the vine.

The next morning, Sue found Joanna turned toward the drawn green shade. 'Pull it up; I want to see,' she ordered in a whisper. But, lo, out against the brick wall, one lone leaf had survived the storm. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of decay, it clung to the branch some twenty feet above the ground.

'I've been a bad girl, Sue,' said Joanna. 'Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring me a little broth now. And some pillows about me so I can sit up and watch you cook.'

When the doctor came by that morning, he concluded that Joanna’s chances of getting better were even. In the hall, he shared the news with Sue that Old Man Behrman died that morning. Sue shared the news with Joanna. The news was: they had brought him to the hospital after finding him early in soaking, freezing clothes. They had found a lantern still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it.

'Look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah—it's Behrman's masterpiece— he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell.'

Jesus sought to show us that when we begin caring more about someone else than we do about ourselves, we are becoming real human beings, and less like wooden soldiers. 'To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God' John 1:12.