Recognizing
Jesus
One of my favorite Christmas
stories is about the old shoe cobbler who dreamed one Christmas Eve that Jesus
would come to visit him the next day. The dream was so real that he was
convinced it would come true.
So the next morning he got up
and went out and cut green boughs and decorated his little cobbler shop
and got all ready for Jesus to come and visit. He was so sure that Jesus
was going to come that he just sat down and waited for Him.
The hours passed and Jesus
didn’t come. But an old man came. He came inside for a moment to get warm out
of the winter cold. As the cobbler talked with him he noticed the holes in the
old man’s shoes, so he reached up on the shelf and got him a new pair of shoes.
He made sure they fit and that his socks were dry and sent him on his way.
Still he waited. But Jesus didn’t
come. An old woman came. A woman who hadn’t had a decent meal in two days. They
sat and visited for a while, and then he prepared some food for her to eat. He
gave her a nourishing meal and sent her on her way.
Then he sat down again to wait for
Jesus. But Jesus still didn’t come.
Then he heard a little boy crying
out in front of his shop. He went out and talked with the boy, and discovered
that the boy had been separated from his parents and didn’t know how to get
home. So he put on his coat, took the boy by the hand and led him home.
When he came back to his little
shoe shop it was almost dark and the streets were emptied of people. And then
in a moment of despair he lifted his voice to heaven and said, “Oh Lord Jesus,
why didn’t you come?”
And then in a moment of silence he
seemed to hear a voice saying, “Oh shoe cobbler, lift up your heart. I kept my
word. Three times I knocked at your friendly door. Three times my shadow fell
across your floor. I was the man with the bruised feet. I was the woman you
gave to eat. I was the boy on the homeless street.”
Jesus had come. The cobbler just
didn’t realize it.
– by Melvin Newland
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