I’d like share with you one of my favorite Christmas stories originally told by Paul Harvey. I hope this story help bring forth a deeper understanding and appreciation for Jesus Christ, God incarnate, as you celebrate Christmas this year.
A man was invited by his wife and children to go to the Christmas Eve service at their church. He refused to go saying, "I don't understand how a God who is supposed to be loving and kind can let mankind suffer so much. Why would He decide to become a man and be born as a baby in a manger, no less? There is no logic in such an absurd idea, and I just can't accept it." So his wife and children went to church without him.
Shortly after the family left, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair to enjoy a nice quite evening alone. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound, then another, and then another. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his window. But when he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, were trying to fly through his large window.
Feeling sorry for the birds, he came up with a great idea. He would open the barn doors and let the birds spend the night there. He put on his coat and boots and trudged out to the barn, opened the doors wide, and turned on a light. But the birds just kept flying against his window, trying to get in.
He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house and sprinkled bread crumbs on the snow, making a trail to the lighted wide-open doorway of the barn. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them, waving his arms. But to no avail, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.
“What’s wrong with these birds?” he thought. Then he realized that they were afraid of him. To them he was a strange and terrifying creature. “How can I let them know that they can trust me, that I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them?” he felt frustrated and distraught. “Oh, if only I could become a bird like they are and speak their language! Then I could tell them not to be afraid and show them the way to the barn. I wish I could become one of them so they could hear and understand me!”
At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel," which means, "God with us." (Matthew 1:22-23)
From Pastor Sara’s Heart
December 22, 2013