“Fragile fingers, sent to heal us.
Tender brow prepared for thorns,
Tiny heart who’s blood will save us – unto us is born…
welcome to our world.”

Now there is a thought! At any other time of year, when I think of why Christ came to this earth, I immediately think of the cross. Yet, when Christmas time rolls around, I begin to think of the manger. It’s amazing how one little manger scene in somebody’s front yard can alter the way a person thinks of something for a few months!

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”
– Luke 2:11

But the manger scene can change more than just how a person thinks – it can change their life. The story below is a retelling of someone who’s life was changed by the Christmas story. I heard this last Christmas at church, and it opened up a whole new world to me! It’s hard to wrap my mind around why the Lord of Glory would ever set a foot on this earth, yet alone, be born like us and live like us. That part of the Gospel is a little mind boggling! The cross is pretty easy to understand, right? – God loved us so much that He died to save us from our sin. But the Son of God being born in this world just like everybody else? – Once again, that’s pretty mind boggling! But as I read the story below, I get a picture of why it had to be that way. Once you read it for yourself, I’m sure you’ll see why also…

Modern Day Parable:The man I’m talking about was not a scrooge now, he was a kind man, a decent man, a mostly good man. Gracious to his family, upright in his dealings with other men – but he just did not believe all that incarnation stuff. What the churches proclaim at Christmas time, it just didn’t make sense! And he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just could not swallow the Jesus story about God coming to earth as man. He told his wife, “I’m truly sorry to distress you, but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve.” He said he would feel like a hypocrite, so he would just rather stay home. He said he would wait up for the family, so he stayed and they went to the midnight service. Shortly after the family drove off in the car, snow began to fall, he went to the window to watch the flurries get heavier and heavier, then, he went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later, he was startled by a thudding sound, then another and yet another. At first he thought it was someone throwing snowballs against the living room window, but when he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled out in the miserable snow. They had been caught in the storm and in desperate search of shelter had tried to fly through his large landscape window. That was what was making the sound. Well, he couldn’t just let the poor creatures lie there and freeze – he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony – it would provide a warm shelter. Quickly he put on his coat and gloves and tramped through the deepening snow to the barn, he opened the doors wide and inside the barn turned on a light so the birds would know the way. But the birds did not come. He figured that food might entice them, so he went back to the house and got some bread crumbs and sprinkled them on the snow to the yellow-lighted, wide open door of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs – the birds continued to flop around helplessly in the snow. He tried to catch them but he could not, he tried to shoo them into the barn by walking around them and waving his arms, but instead, they scattered in every direction. Every direction except into the barn! And that’s when he realized that they were afraid of him and to them he reasoned, “I am a terribly strange, terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way that I might let them know that they can trust me. That I’m not trying to hurt them but to help them, but how?” Any move he made continued to frighten and confuse them. They would not follow, they would not be led, or shooed because they feared him. And he thought to himself, “If only I could be a bird now, if I could be a bird and mingle with them and speak their language, and tell them not to be afraid – then I could show them the way to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them wouldn’t I? So they could see and hear and understand.” At that moment, the church bells began to ring, and the sound reached his ears above the sound of the wind. He stood there listening to the bells feeling the glad tidings of Christmas, then, sunk to his knees in the snow, “Yea Lord we greet Thee, born this happy morning, Jesus to Thee be all glory given, Word of the Father now in flesh appeared, O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.”

Because Jesus came as a man – He mingled with people, He spoke their language, He said, “Do not be afraid.”

He showed us the way to the Father…