The Babe in a Manger
Notes
Transcript
This is always a beautiful tradition - to come into our wonderfully decorated sanctuary, surrounded by family and friends on Christmas Eve to sing old familiar songs, hear the retelling of our Savior’s birth and light our candles to Silent Night. As we listen to the Nativity story, we hear what happened over 2000 years ago in the little town of Bethlehem. Tonight I want us to consider not only what happened, but why.
To help us, I have a story to tell. It is not my story, in fact the author is unknown. But it is a story that some of you have probably heard before. It is a story that Paul Harvey, the famous radio broadcaster from 1951-2008, would tell this time of year. It is called “The Man and the Birds.”
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The man I’m going to tell you about was not a scrooge, he was a kind decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family and upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn’t believe in all of that incarnation stuff that the churches proclaim at Christmas time. It just didn’t make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus story, about God coming to Earth as a 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 and that he would much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. So he stayed and they went to the midnight service.
Shortly after the family 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 fireside chair and began to read his newspaper.
Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound. Then another ... and then another. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against the living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled outside miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and in a desperate search for shelter they had tried to fly through his large landscape window. That is what had been making the sound.
Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures just lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter. All he would have to do is to direct the birds into the shelter.
Quickly, he put on a coat and galoshes and he tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light so the birds would know the way in. But the birds did not come in.
So, he figured that food would entice them. He hurried back to the house and fetched some bread crumbs. He sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail of bread crumbs to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs.
The birds continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them but could not. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around and waving his arms. Instead, they scattered in every direction ... every direction except into the warm lighted barn.
And that’s when he realized they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me. That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Any move he made tended to frighten them and confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.
He thought to himself, if only I could be a bird and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to the safe warm ... to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see ... and hear ... and understand.
At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind.
He stood there listening to the bells, Adeste Fidelis, (Come Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen) listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas.
And he sank to his knees in the snow ...
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This is the why. Why we celebrate Christmas. When we strip away the lights, the ornaments, the giving and receiving of gifts, the watching of holiday classics like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, It’s a Wonderful Life, or Elf, take away the cookies and the stockings, the parades and pageants, the busy stores and the family conflicts, the office parties, the church services and the football games - remove all of it, and we are left with the knowledge that God became man. He became one of us. He did so to say to us “Do not be afraid.” Receive me and receive eternal life. He came to make us children of God.
John’s gospel tells us this:
The true light that shines on all people was coming into the world. The light was in the world, and the world came into being through the light, but the world didn’t recognize the light. The light came to his own people, and his own people didn’t welcome him. But those who did welcome him, those who believed in his name, he authorized to become God’s children, born not from blood nor from human desire or passion, but born from God. The Word became flesh and made his home among us. We have seen his glory, glory like that of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. John testified about him, crying out, “This is the one of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is greater than me because he existed before me.’ ” From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace; as the Law was given through Moses, so grace and truth came into being through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made God known.
We all know that some will not welcome him. Let that not be said of you.
Receive this gift of grace. It is yours for the taking.
And if you have already received it, then share it with someone else. It is the greatest gift that we can share.
Merry Christmas.
