There was once a grumpy
farmer. No one knew why he was grumpy. As far as anyone could remember he had
always been grumpy.
He lived in a little two room
farm house two fields away from a village. He kept himself to himself, and
everyone gave him a wide berth too. There was one room for him and an adjoining
room which served as a stable for his few animals, a cow and a couple of sheep,
and beyond that a vegetable garden with a beehive.
Every evening he would eat
his supper by the light of the fire - there was no point in lighting a candle
just for him, and this was long before there were electric lights – and then he
would go to bed.
Spring, summer, autumn went
by until Christmas Eve arrived, not that the farmer ever took any notice of
that. The farmer ate his supper by the firelight, and went to bed, just as he
always did. There were no presents, no cards – who would have sent them? – no
tree, no decorations, nothing to mark this day as any different from any other.
Now, as you know, I’m sure,
at midnight on Christmas Eve each year, all the animals in the world are given
the power of human speech. If you don’t believe me stay up and ask your dogs
and cats next year… The animals in the grumpy farmer’s stable didn’t know why
this was, because they’d never heard of Christmas, but each year they enjoyed
their little chat with each other – normally the cow could only speak cowish
and the sheep could only speak sheepish, but on this one night of the year they could understand each other perfectly.
On this particular Christmas
Eve they were just agreeing about how sweet the grass had tasted that summer
and how glad they were that they had this warm and cosy shelter since it was a
cold and windy night outside, when all of a sudden a pure white dove squeezed through a
hole in the thatch and flew down to perch on the windowsill. She shook herself
out and looked at them “Brr… I am so glad to have found some shelter here from
that cold wind, but I only came across this house by accident. Tell me, why, on
this night of all nights, don’t you have a candle burning in your window like everyone else?”
“Why should we have a candle
burning in the window tonight? “ asked the cow.
“Don’t you know? It’s
Christmas Eve” said the dove.
“What’s Christmas Eve?,”
asked the animals. “We’ve never heard of it ”.
So the dove told them about
Mary and Joseph, and the baby Jesus, who was born in a stable and laid in a
manger, because there was no room for him anywhere else. She told them about
the shepherds who were the first to hear the news – the sheep liked that! – and
the Magi who followed a star to visit the baby. She told them how the child was
special, the son of God, sent to show people how much God loved them.
“That’s a lovely story” said
the cow, “but what’s it got to do with putting a candle in the window?”
“Oh well” said the dove. “You
see, it is said that every Christmas Eve, Mary and Joseph wander through the
world once again, looking for a place for Jesus to be born. So people put a
candle in their windows as a sign that they would be welcome there. Everyone
does it – just look over there at the village!”
The animals crowded round the
little window and sure enough they could see that each house in the village had
a tiny pinprick of light in its window, a single candle ,burning to welcome the
Holy Family if they should come that way.
“Oh, but we should have a candle
too,” said the cow, “We would love a visit from these very special people. How
sad that, all these years they might have been passing by and not known that we would have helped them. But
what can we do? We have no candles ourselves, and I don’t think the farmer has
any either!”
“Oh yes he doezz” said a
small voice…
The animals looked to see
where it had come from, and they spotted a small honey bee, which had crawled
through a crack in the window frame and was sitting by the dove on the
windowsill.
“ I thought you bees were all asleep for the
winter.” Said the cow “I’m surprised to see you up and about”.
“Normally we would be” said
the bee, “but every Christmas Eve all the beez in the world wake up and zing
and dance to celebrate Jesus’ birth – I thought everyone knew that! We zing
together one of the zongs in the human bible, Psalm 100, they call it ‘Make a
joyful noize to the Lord all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladnezz, come
into his prezence with zinging…’”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said the
cow… “I’m sure it’s a very lovely song, but tell us, how do you know that the farmer has
candles?.”.
“Every year, “ said the bee,
“we make him lots of lovely beeswax to make them. We watch him make dozens of candlez
and put them in a big box in his room. He looks at them zadly, though, and
shakez his head. ‘ No real point in doing this,’ he zays, zince no one ever
comes to zee me, and I’m zure Mary and Joseph won’t. Oh yes,” said the bee, “
he haz many hundreds of candles, but they have never come out of the box he put them
in!”
“What a shame,” said the
sheep, ”Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could get one of those candles and put
it in the window here to welcome Mary and Joseph. But how could we do it? We
can’t get out of the stable. We can’t get into his room. We can’t open the box,
and even if we could carry a candle back without waking him, how could we light
it, since we haven’t got a match…?”
They all stood in silence and
racked their brains for a solution.
“Well,” said the cow. “There
must be a way, even if we haven’t puzzled it out yet. I know – why don’t we
tidy up the stable and put some fresh straw in the manger anyway, just in case.
And perhaps by the time we’ve done that one of us will have figured out what to
do.”
So they all set to work. They
pushed the dirty straw aside, and spread out fresh straw on the floor. They
lined the manger with new hay and the sheep even scratched off some of their
wool against a beam which the dove laid on top of the straw so it would make a soft bed. The bee just carried on singing his song in
the hope it would keep their spirits up. When they’d finished, if a baby ever had to be
born in a stable, this was surely the very best stable he’d find.
But they still had no idea
how to get that candle. The animals stood with their heads hung low. All that
effort, but it would be no use…
And then, there was a knock
at the door. They all swivelled round to look as it slowly creaked open, and a
man’s head appeared around it.
“Can we come in, me and my
wife? We’re looking for shelter, and somewhere for our baby to be born.”
The animals all stood with
their mouths open.
“Are you…?” said the cow…”Are
you…? Said the sheep “Are you…?” said the dove and the bee.
“Are you Joseph, and is your
wife Mary,” they all said together.
“Why yes, of course” said
Joseph. “So, can we come in?”
“Yes” “Please do” “we’d be delighted”, they
all said at once.
And Joseph led Mary in, and
the cow lay down on the strawy floor and offered her broad back for Mary to
rest against, and the sheep surrounded her to keep off the draughts. And very
soon the baby came squalling into the world, as babies do.
In the room next door the
farmer was still fast asleep. He was used to the sound of the animals moving
around, so he hadn’t woken up as they cleaned the stable. But in the depths of
his dreams, he suddenly heard a noise he wasn’t expecting. He sat bolt upright.
Was it a lamb? No, it sounded like a human child. Someone had broken into his
stable, probably trying to steal something…
He got out of bed, and picked
up a heavy stick. Then he crept out of his door, round the side of the house. He
gripped the stick in one hand and the stable door handle in the other and …one,
two, three… he flung it open.
“Ha! Caught you in the act,
you miserable thieves…” But all he saw in front of him was a woman, leaning on
the back of his cow and surrounded by his sheep, and a man,
looking a bit worried, behind her, and a baby, lying peacefully now in his
manger on a bed of soft wool.
“Are you…Could you be…Mary
and Joseph…in my stable…in my house?”
“Why yes, of course, who else
would we be, and where else would we want to come?” they said.
“But , but, there is no
candle in the window? How did you find your way here?”
“There didn’t need to be a
candle,” said Mary, “The kindness in your animals’ hearts shone more brightly
than a thousand candles. They did everything they could to make this place
ready for us, and if a child ever had to be born in a stable, surely this is the
one they should choose.”
And the farmer saw that it
was so. And a tear slid down his cheek, and he sat down and told Mary and
Joseph how he didn’t really want to be grumpy, but early on in his life, the
other children had never wanted to play with him. Perhaps he was odd or
different. Perhaps it was just that he lived two fields away, not in the
village with them. But he had learned not to ask to join in with their games,
not to hope that someone would be his friend. And once he’d started to keep his
distance, he just couldn’t seem to stop. So no one ever risked visiting him,
and he never risked visiting them either. But if God himself, in his Son, could
come to visit him, and even be born in his stable, then perhaps he should think
again.
And the farmer thought again.
And suddenly, he had an idea.
And he rushed next door, and
threw open the box with all those candles in it and gathered up armfuls of them
and piled them on his table. Then he sat down and he wrote lots of paper labels
which he tied to the candles. Then he threw them all into a bag, and set out
across the fields to the village.
And in the morning, when the
villagers awoke on Christmas Day, every one of them found a candle on their
doorstep, with a label tied to it, which said, “This is not a Christmas candle.
This is an anytime candle. Let it shine as a sign of welcome, because when we
welcome each other we welcome the Christ child too, and he is born in us. Christmas
blessings, from the not-so-grumpy farmer”
And ever after that, when
night fell, if the farmer wanted company he would look out of his farm house
towards the village and see one of his candles burning in the window of this
house or that house. And he would set out across the fields and knock on the
door and be welcomed in for a chat and a drink and maybe a game of cards or two, except,
that is, for the nights when he lit a candle in his own window, and everyone else
came to him.
Amen
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