The story is told of a farmer who didn’t believe in Jesus. One snowy Christmas Eve, his wife was taking their children to a service at their local church. He refused to come saying: ‘Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth as a man? That’s ridiculous!’ So, they left him at home.
During the evening the winds grew stronger, and the snow turned to a blizzard. He heard a series of loud thumps on the window. In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese. They had been migrating south when they got caught in the snowstorm. They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter.
The man wanted to help the geese and so he opened the doors of the barn, hoping they would go inside for shelter. But the geese didn’t do anything, despite the man’s efforts to move them. He made a breadcrumb trail leading to the barn and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and scattered.
Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn: ‘Why don’t they follow me?!’ Then he realised: ‘If only I were a goose and become one of them, then I could save them.’ Finally, he understood the heart of the Christmas message. God has become one of us in Jesus. The eternal creator God has entered time and space as a baby, to show us who God is and how we can know Him.
This Christmas, let’s celebrate again this amazing truth that we have a God who knows and can meet our needs in Jesus. ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel, which means ‘God with us’’. Matthew 1:23.
