Service of Carols & Candles Meditation

A meditation offered for the glory of God for the Service of Carols and Candles

December 18, 2011 at First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas.

Will you pray with me? 

Startle us, O God, with your Truth, and open our hearts and minds to your Word.  Silence in us any voice but your own, so that you Spirit may be within us today.  Amen.

It was a cold and snowy Christmas Eve. Inside the warm house, the Christmas tree was cheerfully ablaze with lights and surrounded by dozens of colorfully wrapped presents. The man’s wife and children were dressed and ready to leave for church. “Come with us,” they urged.  Their dad, her husband did not go to church, but they would always ask him to come for they loved him very much. “Not me,” he snapped. “I don’t believe all that religion garbage.” For many years the man’s wife had been trying to tell him about Jesus Christ and the salvation he offers. How God’s Son had become a human being in order to show us the way to heaven. “Nonsense,” the man always said. The family left for church and the man was all alone in his cozy country home, sipping some hot chocolate in his big leather easy chair in front of the fire.  He glanced out the window at the cold snowy scene outside before he turned to warm himself by the fire. But as he turned, his eyes caught a movement in the snow outside. He looked. Birds! A bunch of small birds were tapping on the window with the wings and beaks. “The fools,” he thought. “They’ll freeze for sure!” The man put on his hat and coat and opened the back door. A blast of wintry air sent a shiver through his body.  He first tried to scare them away, but they kept flying around banging on the window sill.  “Come in here! Come inside the house where there’s warmth and food. You’ll die out there.” But the birds did not understand what the strange man was trying to tell them. He thought a minute and had another idea.  He walked outside to his barn. “Come in here! Don’t be afraid.  You’ll die out here.  I want to save you.” But the birds did not understand what the man was trying to do.  As the man waved his arms and hands jumping up and down in the snow like a crazy person, it was too late.  The birds were frightened and few away into the dark, blustery night. Dejected, cold and wet, the man stood in front of his barn.  “Well, I did everything I could for them,” the man muttered to himself. “What more could I do? I’d have to become a bird myself in order to reach them and save them. If I became a bird, I could tell them and show them. They would have to believe me then.” The man walked back to the house.  Just as he reached the door, the church bells rang in the distance. The man paused for a second and listened. Then he went in by the fire, got down on his knees, and wept.

And that is what the Christmas story is all about. The Creator of the universe loved us so much that he came to earth to save us from sin and show us how to live. And if we listen to him and follow him, whether we fully understand it or not, we will not perish, but instead will be given everlasting life.