Why Jesus Came

Why Jesus Came

A Christmas Classic

By American radio host

Paul Harvey

There once was a kind and decent man, certainly not a Scrooge.
 He was generous to his family and upright in his dealings with other men. 
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 said he'd 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 they went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall.
 He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier
 and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper.
 Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound.

 Then another, and then another.  Sort of a thump or a thud.
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.
 That 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?
 Because any move he made tended to frighten them, 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 the glad tidings of Christmas.

 Suddenly he realized "all that incarnation stuff" was true.

 He now understood why Jesus came to earth.

And he sank to his knees in the snow and prayed.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Have a great Christmas. God bless you.


"Simeon took Him up in his arms
and praised and thanked God and said,
And now, Lord, You are releasing Your servant
to depart this world in peace according to Your word.
For with my own eyes I have seen Your Salvation."    
Luke 2:28-30

The Presentation of the Temple

Philippe de Champaigne

(1648)

 Joy To The World

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing!

Mystical Representation of the birth of Jesus
(17th century)
Artist Unknown

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.