Abridged by Colin Brewster
There was a man. He was a kind, and mostly good man. He was generous to his family, and honest in his dealings with others, but each year when Christmas came along, he had a problem. He just couldn’t accept the Christmas story.
“I’m really sorry to upset you”, he told his wife, “but I’m not going to church with you this Christmas Eve”.
He said he would feel like a hypocrite if he went, but he did say that he would stay up until she and the children got back.
Shortly after they drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier, and then he went back to his comfortable chair and began to read his newspaper.
A few minutes later, he was startled by a thudding sound. Then another. And then another, sort of a thump or a thud. At first, he thought someone must be throwing snowballs at his living room window.
But when he opened the front door to investigate, he found a flock of small birds, sparrows, huddled miserably in the snow. Looking for shelter, they had tried to fly through his living room window into the warmth inside, but they just hit the glass with a thud.
Well, he couldn’t just let the poor birds lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn. It would provide a warm shelter for the birds. Quickly, he put on his coat and winter boot and tramped through the snow to the barn. He turned on a light and opened the barn doors wide.
But the birds did not move.
He thought food would draw them in, so he hurried back to the house, got some bread crumbs, and sprinkled them on the snow making a trail to the wide open door of the barn. But to his disappointment, the birds ignored the bread crumbs and continued to shiver helplessly in the snow.
He tried catching them. No success. He tried walking around them waving his arms to “shoo” them into the barn. Instead, they scattered in every direction except into the warm barn.
Then he realized something. They were afraid of him. To them, he thought, I am a strange and scary monster. If only I could in some way let them know they can trust me, that I’m not trying to hurt them but trying to help them.
But how could he do it? Any movement he made frightened and confused them. They just could not understand. They would not follow him, nor would they be led, or “shooed”. They were terrified of him.
“If only I could be a bird”, he thought “and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid, and I could show them the way to the safe warm barn, but I would have to be like them, for them to see and hear and understand.”
At that moment, in the distance, the church bells began to ring. He stood there listening, listening to the bells ringing out the good news of the birth of Jesus. The wind and blowing snow calmed down, his soul became quiet and suddenly he understood. This was what Christmas was all about. Jesus, the Saviour, had come, so we could see and hear and understand who God is.
All the years of doubt suddenly disappeared like the passing storm. The humbled man dropped to his knees in the snow and prayed his very first prayer: “Thank You, Jesus, for coming to get me out of the storm!”
Christmas is a time we celebrate God’s great love. We remember Jesus came so that we could find shelter in Him in all the storms of this life and have assurance of everlasting life with Him in eternity.
That’s what we are really Celebrating at Christmas.