WHY JESUS

One winter night this farmer heard an irregular thumping sound against the kitchen storm door. He went to the window and watched as tiny, shivering sparrows, attracted to the evident warmth inside, beat in vain against the glass.

Touched, the farmer bundled up and trudged through fresh snow to open the barn door for the struggling birds. He turned on the lights and tossed some hay in a corner. But the sparrows, which had scattered in all directions when he emerged from the house, hid in the darkness afraid. They were confused and did not know what to do.

The man tried various tactics to get them into the barn. He laid down a trail of Saltine cracker crumbs to direct them. He tried circling behind the birds to drive them toward the barn. Nothing worked. In their eyes he was a huge alien creature and the birds were terrified of him; the birds couldn’t comprehend that he actually desired to help. That he did not want to see them be harmed. He wanted to give them a chance to continue living. But they just hid in the darkness staying clear of the farmer. All they had to do was go towards the light in barn and they would be warm and safe.

The farmer withdrew to his house and watched the doomed sparrows through a window. As he stared, a thought hit him like lightning strike: “If only I could become a bird – one of them – just for a season. Then I wouldn’t frighten them. I could show them the way to warmth and safety.” At the same moment, another thought dawned on him. He had grasped the reason of WHY JESUS?