Our Scripture lesson sounds more appropriate for Palm Sunday than for the Sunday before Christmas, doesn’t it?  But I am fascinated by the story, because it proclaims a truth: that the God of the Christian faith is a God who has need.  When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, His parents had to borrow a shepherd’s cave because there was no room at the inn.  When Jesus rode into Jerusalem in triumph on that first Palm Sunday, He borrowed a donkey.  Both of these ideas came together for me in a poem which I came across some time ago: They borrowed a bed to lay His head When Christ the Lord came down; They borrowed the ass in the mountain pass For Him to ride to town; But the crown that he wore and the Cross that he bore Were His own...(author unknown)

I.  THE CHRISTIAN FAITH IS UNIQUE IN ITS INSIS…