Mavinator’s Weblog

It was Christmas Eve! The family always loves Christmas Eve; it was a day for them to be together, to share a ziti dinner, to play games together, and spend an entire afternoon together. Cell phones were turned off, computers were shut down, and life became simple for just that one day.

This Christmas Eve was even more special because it was snowing. It started as a gentle storm with beautiful, huge snowflakes. As they day wore on, though the storm picked up. By mid-afternoon the winds had picked up to near gale force and snow was blowing hard. The long nights of winter were even more evident with the clouds and the storm, as darkness started setting in early this Christmas Eve. This storm promised to be a nasty one!

Of course there were Christmas Eve services to go to, too. The church had promoted and planned a huge celebration for this Christmas Eve. It was to be Christmas pageantry at it’s best, children dressed as Mary and Joseph, the choir dressed in full robes, and even live animals as props. It would be a glorious celebration of the birth of a Savior.

Lisa and the kids were all planning to go. Ten-year-old Ben was in the play, 8-year-old Brittany was in the children’s choir, and baby john was just excited because the Christmas pageant was finally going to be taking place. Lisa wished so much that her husband, Tim, would attend also. She had been praying for Tim for years, that he would finally see Jesus as his savior, that he would see beyond the religious ritual that he had grown up with and see a relationship with a God who wanted to be part of his life, with a Savior who had died for him, and with a Holy Spirit who wanted to be in him and guide him.

But, Tim, was cold to all that. He didn’t want anything to do with it at all, as a matter of fact. He had done that ‘religious thing’ as a kid and was done with it. He didn’t need God; after all, where was God when his dad died when Tim was a young teenager? No, Tim just didn’t get this religious thing at all; he was done with it.

So, as it came time to go to the Christmas Eve service, Lisa and the kids got all bundled up and booted up to go. Lisa asked Tim, one more time, if he would like to go. She didn’t want to nag, but wanted him to know how much it would mean to her. Tim cared for Lisa so much, not wanting to hurt her feelings and wishing he could bring himself to go along with her, but hearing the words come out of him mouth, “no, Lisa, you know how I feel about all that religious stuff”.

Lisa and the kids went on, then, without Tim. The service was grand, just as everyone had expected, but the storm was picking up more and more. Tim was concerned about the family and their safety as they were out in the storm so he was a little wary as he sat home, alone, on Christmas Eve.

Tim needed to go out to the garage and get a few presents ready for tomorrow morning, so he put on his hat, coat, and gloves to make the trek out to the detached garage. He had wanted to build a breezeway from the house to the garage for years, and he understood why tonight. The trip from house to garage, although only thirty feet, would be a cold and windy one.

Once he arrived at the garage he saw a little family of birds sitting outside. The seemed to be sheltering themselves from the storm, as best they could, by gathering close together and close to the garage, only a few feet from the garage door. Tim tried to show them to the garage door, knowing their chances of survival would increase greatly if they could just go into the garage. He didn’t like the idea of having a family of birds in the garage for he winter, but he felt that was a better alternative than having the birds die just a few feet from warmth and safety.

Tim waved the birds into the garage but it seemed they didn’t understand what he was doing; they didn’t make a move. He tried shooing them, over and over again, into the barn but the birds simply could not understand. Tim was so frustrated. He thought to himself, “you silly birds, you see me leading you to safety but you ignore me, you just don’t understand”.

He kept waving, kept shooing, but the birds just would not move toward the safety of the garage. “How can I get them into the garage, to safety”, Tim kept thinking. His frustration was building. Then, he thought to himself, “if only I could become one of them for a little while, I could talk their language, and become one of them! If I could become a little bird for jut a short while I could lead them and save them from their lack of direction! If only I could become one of them…”

Then it hit him. Through all of the religion Tim had learned as a kid, through his church attendance as a child and a young adult, he had never considered this. The Christmas story just became crystal clear. God was just as frustrated with mankind as Tim was with this little family of birds. Only, God had the ability to become one of us, to be like us, to send a Savior to us to lead us and save us from our lack of direction.

Through Jesus, God was with us! He sent His Son to become one of us, to communicate with us, to see our problems from a human perspective, and to lead us and to save us from misunderstanding, misdirection, and even from ourselves! This is the Christmas story. God with us!