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Why
Jesus Came
There
was once a man who didn't believe in God, and he didn't hesitate to
let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays,
like Christmas. His wife, however, did believe, and she raised their
children to also have faith in God and Jesus, despite his
disparaging comments.
One
snowy Christmas Eve, his wife was taking their children to a
Christmas Eve service in the farm community in which they lived. She
asked him tocome, but he refused. "That story is
nonsense!" he said. "Why would God lower Himself to come
to Earth as a man? That's ridiculous!" So she and the children
left, and he stayed home. A while later,the winds grew stronger and
the snow turned into a blizzard. As the man looked out the window,
all he saw was a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the
fire for the evening.
Then
he heard a loud thump. Something had hit the window. Then another
thump. He looked out, but couldn't see more than a few feet. When
the snow let up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have
been beating on his window. In the field near his house he saw a
flock of wild geese.
Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got
caught in the snowstorm and couldn't go on. They were lost and
stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter. They just flapped
their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and
aimlessly. A couple of them
had flown into his window, it seemed.
The
man felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them. The barn would
be a great place for them to stay, he thought. It's warm and safe;
surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm. So he
walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and
waited, hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside. But
the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn't seem to notice
the barn or realize what it could mean for them.
The
man tried to get their attention, but that just seemed to scare them
and they moved farther away. He went into the house and came with
some bread, broke it up, and made a breadcrumb trail leading to the
barn. They still didn't catch on. Now he was getting frustrated. He
got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they
only got more scared and scattered in every direction except toward
the barn. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where
they would be warm and safe. "Why
don't they follow me?!" he exclaimed. "Can't they see this
is the only place where they
can survive the storm?"
He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn't
follow a human. "If
only I were a goose, then I could save them," he said out loud. Then
he had an idea. He went into barn, got one of his own geese, and
carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild
geese. He then released it. His goose flew through the
flock and straight into the barn--and one by one the other
geese followed it to safety. He stood silently for a moment as the
words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed in his mind:
"If
only I were a goose, then I could save them!"
Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier.
"Why would God want to be like us? That's ridiculous!"
Suddenly it all made sense. That is what God had done. We were like
the geese--blind, lost, perishing. God had His Son become like us so
He could show us the way and save us. That was the meaning of
Christmas, he realized.
As
the winds and blinding snow died down, his soul became quiet and
pondered this wonderful thought. Suddenly he understood what
Christmas was all about, why Christ had come. Years of doubt and
disbelief vanished like the passing storm. He fell to his knees in
the snow, and prayed his first prayer:
"Thank You, God, for coming in human form to get me out
of the storm!"
--Author
unknown I pray that this touches your heart as it did mine. |
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Home (1 Tim 1:15 KJV) This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. |
