In one of history's dark hours, on a cold Christmas Eve during the Korean War, a young woman struggles along a village street, about deliver a child.
"Help me! Please. My baby."
No one pays any attention.
A middle-aged couple walks by. The wife pushes away the young mother and sneers, "Where's the father? Where's your American man now?"
The couple laughs and walks on.
The young woman doubles up from a contraction as she watches them go.
"Please . . ." she begs.
A missionary lives nearby. If only he would help her baby. She struggles over the frozen countryside. Snow begins to fall. She takes shelter under a bridge. There, alone, her baby is born on Christmas Eve.
Worried about her newborn son, she takes off her own clothes, wraps them around the baby and holds him close in the warm circle of her arms.
The next day the missionary sets out to deliver Christmas packages. He hears the cry of a baby and follows the sound to a bridge. Under it, he finds a young mother frozen to death. The missionary tenderly lifts the baby out of her arms.
When the baby is 10 years old, his now adoptive father tells him the story of his mother's death on Christmas Eve.
The young boy cries, realizing the sacrifice his mother had made for him.
The next morning the missionary rises early to find the boy's bed empty. He follows a fresh set of small footprints in the snow. It leads back to the bridge where the young mother had died.
As the missionary approaches, he stops, stunned. Kneeling in the snow is his son, naked and shivering uncontrollably. His clothes lie beside him in a small pile. Moving closer, he hears the boy say through chattering teeth, "Mother, were you this cold for me?"
Jesus shivered for us in a cold cave where they kept animals. His last hour on earth he suffered terrible pain to reassure us that when we are in that hour we will take great comfort in his words, "Today you will be with me in paradise."
The King of glory, the Lord Jesus Christ, gave himself to you and me. The Bible calls Him, "the unspeakable gift!" What unconditional love!
"My dear people, since God has loved us so much, we too should love one another"
(John 4:11). Stories of love surround us. This past year we heard of the New York policeman Larry De Primo who saw a panhandler in bare feet. Larry went and bought some boots for him.
Earlier a Winnipeg bus driver saw a man on the street in bare feet. He stopped and gave this man his own boots. Then there is the politician who secretly passes out $100 bills to 1,000 needy persons each Christmas.
May we reflect the love of Christ to others this Christmas.
