Merry Christmas - by My Anonymous Friend

I have been intrigued, (dare I say amused in a way) in recent weeks about the almost comical and certainly strange method God chose to introduce a Saviour to this world. God's ways often are simply "weird". He does not do things the way we would or think we would do them. A culture is looking for a deliverer and a political leader. How do such leaders appear usually? Well obviously with great fanfare and pomp. Bands play, people prepare, thousands gather in anticipation! Announcements are made and anticipation builds!

It was not so with the birth of Jesus! Yes, announcements were made all right but they were apparently not taken seriously or understood well. It makes me smile to think that an unmarried woman, a smelly barn or cave, a band of shepherds, and an obscure village, would be the setting for the arrival of the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting Father. It does not compute in my brain. No armies, no bands playing! No fanfare whatsoever! That is how it was though.

So I wish you a wonderful Christmas as you perhaps too remind yourself of the most basic part of what Christmas is about.

Behold, I bring you great tidings of great joy!

For unto you is born this day in the city of David,

A Saviour Who is Christ the Lord!

Jesus may have entered this world in humble, almost comical circumstances but never has anyone had the impact He had then and continues to have! Years ago I came across an attempt by James Allen Francis to put into words the uniqueness of Jesus. I have inserted what he wrote here below:

"He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village and worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty. Then for just three years he was an itinerant preacher.

"He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He never did any of the things that we normally associate with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.

"While he was still a young man the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. He was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves and his executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth, and that was his coat. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

"Two thousand years have come and gone and today he is the central figure of the human race and the leader of the column of progress.

"All the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever sailed, and all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as has that one solitary life."