The Man and the Birds
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
Merry Christmas, friends!
As my gift to you, I’d like to share one of my favorite seasonal stories. It was originally told by the great American radio broadcaster, Paul Harvey.
On or near Christmas, every year, Harvey shared with his listeners this particular essay in story form. The words, Harvey openly confessed, were not his own. For years he searched for the author…but was never able to trace its origin.
Harvey introduced the story by saying, “Unable to trace its proper parentage, I have designated this as my Christmas Story of the Man and the Birds. You know, The Christmas Story…the God born a man in a manger and all that escapes some moderns, mostly, I think because they seek complex answers to their questions, and this one is so utterly simple. So, for the cynics and the skeptics and the unconvinced, I submit a modern parable.”
You can hear it told as only Paul Harvey could tell it HERE.
The Man and the Birds
Now the man to whom I'm going to introduce you was not a Scrooge; he was a kind, decent, mostly good man…generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men, etc. But he just didn't believe all that incarnation stuff which 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.
“I’m truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, “but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve.” He told her he would feel like a hypocrite; that he’d much rather just stay at home…but, that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and his family went to the Midnight Service.
Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window and watched as the flurries got heavier and heavier. He then went back to his fireside chair and began to read the 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 his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.
Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. It would provide a warm shelter…if he could direct the birds to it.
Quickly he put on a coat and galoshes and tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable.
But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them, waving his arms. Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.
And then, he realized that 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 and confuse them…they just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him. “If only I could be a bird,” he thought to himself, “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 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. And he stood there listening to the bells pealing “Adeste Fidelis”…hearing the bells peal the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)
May the reality of His presence bring you peace and joy today and throughout the new year.
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