Why this God in the flesh born to suffer with us and for us? Why that way? Why Christmas? Maybe this fable [The most of this fable is from an unknown author. I have freely modified it.] will help us understand at least a part of the answer.
There was once a Kansas wheat farmer who didn't hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays, like Christmas, for example. "I don’t believe in all that stuff," he’d say to anyone who’d listen. Late one snowy afternoon--it was in fact the day before Christmas Eve--his wife asked once again to come with her and their two kids the next night to the Christmas Eve service in the little church on the Kansas prairie where several generations of the faithful farm families had gathered to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Son of God. "It would mean so much to our kids if you’d would come," she said.
But once again he refused. Standing by the kitchen window, watching the snow coming down ever more heavily, he said, "The whole thing is nonsense!" he said. "Why would any God lower Himself to come to earth as a man? That's ridiculous!" His wife shook her head sadly and went to the back bedroom where she busied herself with last minute present wrapping—and wound some prayers around her husband like ribbons in hopes that maybe this year he’d change.
A while later, the wind came up and the snow turned into a blizzard. As the evening approached, the snowstorm became so blinding the farmer could barely see the yard light over near barn just a hundred feet away. But he was glad for the storm, because the fall had been abnormally warm and without significant rain. So he sat down to relax by the woodstove.
Then he heard a loud thump.. Something had hit the window. Then another thump. He looked out, but couldn't see more than a few feet. He hated to go out into the storm, but something wasn’t right, so, calling to his wife that he was going outside for a minute, he ventured onto the back porch to see what could have been beating on his window. In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese—an amazing but barely visible sight! Apparently the geese had been flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and couldn't go on. They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter. They just flapped their wings and honked around the field in low circles, aimlessly. A couple of them had flown into his window, it seemed.
The farmer felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them. The old barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought. He no longer kept cattle in there but there was still a scatter of hay and straw and he figured he could dump some grain around to feed the geese. Surely they could spend the night in there and wait out the storm. So he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside. But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn't seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them. As if the geese could understand his words and actions, he waved his arms and cried to them through the wind, "Here goosies, here goosies, over this way. Come in here," but that just seemed to scare them, and they moved further away.
So he got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, "Shoo! Shoo! Get ! Get! Get!" he shouted, but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction except toward the barn. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe.
He had another idea. He trudged through the stinging, blowing snow over to the granary and got some wheat and made a trail leading to the barn. They still didn't catch on. "Why don't they follow me?!" he exclaimed. "Can't they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?" He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn't follow a human. "If only I were a goose, then I could save them," he said out loud, the wind carrying his words off into the growing darkness.
Then he had an idea. He went into the far end of the barn, where he had fenced a place for some geese, a couple of the them being fattened up for the holiday feast. He took one of his own geese, and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese. He then released it. His goose headed through the flock and straight into the barn--and one by one the other geese followed it to safety.
He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed in his mind: "If only I were a goose, then I could save them!" Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier. "Why would God want to be like us? That's ridiculous!" Suddenly, like a sky clearing after a storm, he began to realize that’s what God had done. That’s exactly what his wife and others had been trying to say all those years. We were like the geese--blind, lost, perishing.
He remembered his kids reciting a memory verse, "For God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life…" So that was the meaning of Christmas! Having tried calling us, herding us, ordering us with laws, all to no avail, finally God had sent His Son become like us so He could show us the way to safety and save us.
The farmer shut the barn doors and then walked quickly back to his house and went straight to the room where his wife was wrapping presents. And he hugged her, and said, "Let’s all go to church tomorrow night."
Now he understood what John’s gospel meant: "And the Word became a human being and lived here with us…From him all the kindness and all the truth of God have come down to us."
Merry Christmas. Amen.