There was once a modern man, one of us. He was not a Scrooge, but a kind, decent man. He was generous to his family, and upright with his dealings with other men. And he was looking forward to another Christmas season. However, he did not believe in what he termed
"all that incarnation stuff." "It just does not make sense," he said in his mind, too honest to pretend otherwise. He just could not swallow
"that Jesus Story," the one about God coming to earth as man.
On Christmas Eve, he told his wife,
"I hate to disappoint you, but I just cannot go to church with you tonight." He said he would feel like a hypocrite, that he had much rather stay home, but that he would wait up for them. So he stayed at home and his family went to church.
Shortly after the family drove away, snow began to fall. He watched at the window as the flurries got heavier and thicker, then went back to his fireside chair and began to read the newspaper. Minutes later, he was startled by a thudding sound, then another and another. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against the living room window, but when he went to the door to investigate, he found a flock of birds floundering in the snow. They'd been caught in the storm and in a desperate search for shelter, tried flying through his picture window to the light inside.
Well, he could not let the poor creatures lie there and freeze. He thought of the barn where his children kept their pony. That would provide a warm shelter if he could direct the birds to it. So he quickly put on a coat and boots and tramped through the snow to the barn.
Once there he opened the doors wide, and turned on a light, but the birds only ignored it. They would not come in. He figured food would entice them in, so he fetched a box of bread crumbs, and sprinkled them on the snow making a trail to the lighted doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the crumbs. They just continued to flop helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them, he tried shooing them into the barn and waving his arms. Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm lighted barn.
Suddenly, he realized they were afraid of him.
"To them I'm a strange and terrifying creature," he thought.
"If only I could think of some way to let them know they can trust me so they'd understand that I'm not trying to hurt them, but to help them." But how? Any move he made scared and confused them, they just would not follow. They could not be lead or chased because they feared him.
"If only I could be a bird myself," he thought.
"If only I could be a bird and mingle with them and speak their language. And tell them not to be afraid and show them the way to the warm and safe barn. But, I'd have to become one of them so they could see and hear and understand." Just then, church bells began to ring. The bells rang so loudly that he heard them that cold night. Listening to the bells pealing their glad tidings of Christmas, and remembering the story of the birth of a baby, he suddenly understood why God became a man. And he sank to his knees right there in the snow.
Thanks to Paul Harvey for that wonderful story about the meaning of Christmas!
