It was a cold December afternoon. Rain mixed with snow splashed against the windshield. Overhead dark clouds hovered seemingly just above the treetops. All day long two men, a pastor named Jerry and a layman named Jim, had been delivering Christmas boxes. Many of the families who would receive these boxes would get nothing else for Christmas that year. The pickup truck had been loaded when the two men started out on their journey but now, only one box remained. It was covered with an old piece of tarp to protect it against the rain.
The address on the card meant a drive of several miles beyond the city limit. “What do you think?” Jim asked. He was the driver and it was his truck. Pastor Jerry knew what Jim was thinking. Why drive way out in the country when we could give this last box to someone close by and be home in thirty minutes? It was a tempting thought. Pastor Jerry had a Christmas Eve Communion Service scheduled for 8 p.m. and he could use the time to prepare.
Jim, however, answered his own question, “Well, let’s give it a try. If we can’t find the place, we can always come back and give the box to someone else.”
The rain was pouring down by the time they reached the address on the card. The old white framed house stood on a hillside overlooking the valley. It had once been an elegant place, the centerpiece of a large farm. Now, the farm was gone and the house had deteriorated over the years.
The two men slipped and slid, huffed and puffed as they carried the box up the hill. The red clay offered no foothold and the box, wet from the rain, was beginning to come apart. They climbed the high steps to the porch, set the box down and slid it across the floor. They straightened up just in time to glimpse the face of a small boy at the window. He had been watching them coming up the hill. Now, he announced their arrival with shouts of excitement, “They’re here, Grandma, they’re here!”
The door opened and an older woman greeted them. Her gray hair was pulled back in a bun at the back of her neck. She had on a dark, plain dress with a white apron. She was drying her hands with a dishtowel and explained to them that she had been doing the supper dishes. “I told you, they would come,” a child’s voice said from behind her. A little boy with black hair and bright dark eyes rushed to the box and began pulling at the goodies inside.
The woman told them that she and her grandson were all that was left of her family. The father and mother had divorced and gone their separate ways. The little boy had been left behind for Grandma to raise. She said, “Oh, I am so glad you are here. He was up early this morning looking for you. He sat by that window all day. I wasn’t sure you would come and I tried to prepare him in case of a disappointment. But he just said, ‘Don’t worry, Grandma, I know they will come.’” (1)
That young boy didn’t know it, but, in a sense, he was speaking for all Christianity. A thankful people, more than one billion of us around the world, pause for a few moments this night and pray, “We knew he would come.”
The prophet Isaiah, speaking in behalf of God, had promised it hundreds of years before, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” And he has come, just as promised.
Those are magnificent descriptions of the long-awaited Messiah, are they not? “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
I’m glad that modern writers are not trying to find a word descriptive of Christ. We’ve become so lacking in imagination in this high tech age that any effort we might make would be pitiful in comparison to Isaiah. Nowadays the language of business and computers dominates our daily speech. No frills, just information. And new words are being created, words that we sometimes call technospeak.
In an interview in the online edition of Newsweek magazine, author Don Watson expresses his futility with our language because it has changed due to the popularity of a business culture. He describes how his granddaughter’s elementary school requires that kids write “personal mission statements” and identify their “core values” before they graduate on to middle school.
But the strangest instance of the business mentality spreading beyond reasonable boundaries is a hospital that classifies newborn babies as are you ready for this? “obstetric products.” (2) Let me say that again, babies are now “obstetric products.” Can you imagine the angels announcing at Jesus’ birth, “This day there is born to you an ‘obstetric product,’ which is Christ the Lord!” Or Isaiah proclaiming, “For to us an ‘obstetric product’ is born . . .”
No, we will settle for the traditional language: “to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.”
Can there be a more perfect place to be on Christmas Eve than God’s house? Can there be a more perfect story than the story of the first Christmas?
God entered the world as a tiny babe. That’s impossible for us to get our minds around yet I can’t imagine any better news in all the world. The Creator of the universe loved us enough to come into our world, and he did it not in power, but in the most helpless guise possible, that of an infant. There’s something about a baby, isn’t there, or even a young child?
During the first year and a half of World War II, London was under heavy bombing from German airplanes. Churchill knew that Hitler would win, and England would be destroyed, if he could not unite America as an ally with Britain in the war. Then, on December 7, 1941, Hitler’s ally Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor. Churchill left London and rushed to Washington to meet with President Roosevelt and speak to Congress, to try to get America to help England fight the war.
It was Christmas Eve, 1941. Churchill was a guest of President Roosevelt at the White House.
It had been a very busy day for Churchill. That morning he had given an important speech, broadcast live on radio, before a combined meeting of the House of Representatives and the United States Senate. He had spent the rest of that busy day in private interviews and meetings. That evening he had given another speech when he helped the President light the National Christmas Tree. Afterwards Churchill went to his room in the White House to prepare for a much needed night of rest.
Also staying in the White House that Christmas Eve was the President’s special assistant, Harry Hopkins, and his nine-year-old daughter Diana. Late in the evening there was a knock on the child’s door. She rose from her bed and opened it. There was the White House butler, standing stiffly in his formal dress. He looked down at the little girl and said in a very serious voice, “Miss Hopkins, the Prime Minister wants to see you.” The little girl was frightened as she pulled on her robe and followed the stately butler down a long, dark corridor to the Monroe Bedroom. The butler knocked on the door, and the girl heard a gruff indistinguishable response from inside. When the door opened the child saw the penetrating eyes of the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, staring down at her. She was shocked when Churchill reached out his arms and embraced her. He paused, and then said, “I’m a lonely old father and grandfather on Christmas Eve who wanted a little girl to hug.” Then he glanced bashfully at the butler and sent her back to bed.
One of Churchill’s many biographers said, “This is a side of Winston Churchill few people know. Images of Churchill the war leader, the award-winning author, the master speechmaker, or the astute politician come easily; but not images of Churchill the devoted father and grandfather not the kind of man who might need a little girl’s hug on a lonely Christmas Eve. (3)
I guess all of us need a hug on Christmas Eve, particularly from a child. There’s something about a baby or a young child. That’s one reason Christmas Eve is so wonderful the joy of anticipation that we see in our children’s eyes. God entered the world as a babe in a manger.
Here’s the second thing we need to see: That babe became our Savior.
“And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” He didn’t stay a baby, did he? He became “the man for others.” There are no adjectives lofty enough to describe our feelings about the man from Nazareth. I like the way Dan Owens put it:
Just ask the angels what they think of Jesus, they’ll tell you, “A Savior has been born unto you, He is Christ the Lord.”
Ask John the Baptist and he’ll tell you, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”
Ask the demons what they think of Jesus, they will tell you. “What do you want with us, Son of the most high God?”
Ask Judas what he thinks about Jesus, he will tell you, “I have betrayed innocent blood.”
Ask the apostle Paul, what do you think about Jesus? He will tell you, “that nothing compares to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
Ask Pilate what he thinks, he will tell you, “I find no fault in this just man.”
Ask the Roman centurion what he thinks of Jesus, he will tell you. “Surely this is the Son of God.”
Ask Thomas what he thinks about Jesus, he’ll fall down prostrate before him and cry out, “My Lord and my God.”
Ask Peter, what do you think about Jesus and he will tell you. “God has made this same Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” (4)
We celebrate the fact that God became a tiny babe, but we also celebrate that this tiny babe became our Savior.
To me, one of the charms of Christmas in the popular culture is that it is the season of misfits misfits like “The Littlest Angel” who couldn’t get his halo on properly or “The Charlie Brown Christmas Special” about that loveable loser, Charlie Brown And how about Rudolph, the reindeer with the bright shiny nose?
“Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is said to be the only 20th century addition to the Santa Claus story. He was first introduced as an advertising gimmick. However, he has become more famous and loved among children than Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vitzen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. Rudolph turned 71 this year.
You know his story: There once was a reindeer who was teased by other reindeer because of his big bright, red nose, but he saved Christmas one foggy night when his nose became a beacon that guided Santa’s sled.
Seventy-one years ago Montgomery Ward remember them? gave copies of a poem, “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” to customers for their children. It was an enormous success the store gave away more than six million copies over the years. In 1946 Montgomery Ward transferred the copyright of the poem back to Robert May, who worked for the department store when he wrote it in 1939. May, who had a sick wife and 6 children to put through school, sold the rights to a children’s book publisher within a month. The book sold more than 100,000 copies.
Then, in 1949, a New York songwriter, Johnny Marks, a friend of May’s wrote a 113 word song based on the poem. It took months to convince anyone to record the song, and when he pitched it to cowboy actor Gene Autry anybody remember him? he was turned down, politely but firmly. It was Autry’s wife who talked him into recording the song.
Autry said he would record Rudolph only as the B-side on what he thought would be a hit Christmas tune titled “If It Doesn’t Snow on Christmas.” That song has long been forgotten.
“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was introduced by Autry at a Madison Square Garden concert in September 1949. By Christmas, record sales were near 2 million. It has now sold more than 100 million copies, making it second only to “White Christmas” on the all time seasonal hit parade. (5)
Now, why would I spend so much time on this little song about a red-nosed reindeer? Christmas is a time for celebrating misfits because Christ became a misfit in our behalf. He who lived in glory gave it all up to become a tiny babe and then he became a grown man who suffered and died for the sins of the world. God entered the world as a babe in a manger. That babe became our Savior.
And there was only one reason Christ came he came because he loved us so much. “God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son … ”
In an old Peanuts comic strip, that other popular misfit Charlie Brown cracks open his piggy bank. He says, “Look, I’ve got $9.11 to spend on Christmas.”
Lucy is not impressed. “You can’t buy something for everyone with $9.11, Charlie Brown,” she responds.
Charlie Brown retorts, “Oh yeah? Well, I’m gonna try!”
“Then,” Lucy continues, “they’re sure gonna be cheap presents.”
“But,” Charlie Brown says with absolute conviction, “nothing is cheap if it costs all that you have.” (6)
That tiny babe gave his all when he became a man, and it was for us. And for only one reason. God loves us everyone. So have a grand Christmas Eve and a wonderful Christmas Day, and give God thanks. “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given . . .” He came. He loved us so much, he came. We knew he would.
1. Jerry Anderson, Hummingbirds & Hollyhocks, (Knoxville: Seven Worlds Corp., 2000), pp. 99-100.
2. Newsweek, July, 18, 2005, p. 4.
3. Stephen Mansfield, Never Give In (Highland Books, 1995), p. 127. Cited by Dr. R. L. Hymers, Jr., http://www.rlhymersjr.com/Online_Sermons/2007/122307PM_PresentForJesus.html.
4. Contributed. Source: Whirlwind Resources/Help 4 Sunday.
5. New York Daily News, 12/23/95, p. 19, “As a Hit-Maker, Rudolph Reigns.” Contributed by Dr. John Bardsley.
6. Martin R. Bartel, Parables, etc.