I’ve told this story here before, but it was a long time back. For me, it’s as good an illustration of the Incarnation, the meaning of Christmas, as any I’ve ever heard.

I heard it from an old man I met some years back. He passed away several years ago. His father had been a pastor in what was the predecessor organization to my church body. The events happened when he was a boy – I suppose it must have been in the 1930s or ’40s.

They lived in a small town in the Upper Midwest. My friend (I’ll call him John) was a teenager at the time, and feeling his oats. Some kind of entertainment event (John did not specify) was coming to their town, and John announced one night at the supper table that he intended to go to it.

“You will not go to that event,” his father told him. “It would cause a scandal in our congregation.”

John stuck his chin out. “I don’t care,” he said. “I’m going, and you can’t stop me.”

His father gazed at him a moment. Finally he said, “You’re right. You’re old enough now that I can’t stop you. But understand this. If you disobey me by going to this event, when you come back here afterward, you’ll find the house locked against you. You’ll have to find some other place to sleep that night.”

John said he didn’t care. When the day came, he went to the event. “I honestly can’t remember,” he told me, “whether I had a good time or not. But I’ll never forget what happened when I went home.”

He found the house locked, as his father had promised. Front door. Back door. Side door. Even that window in the basement that was always unlatched if you needed it in an emergency – tonight it was hooked up tight.

Where could he go? All the neighbors were in bed.

He thought about their chicken house. Their family kept chickens to stretch their budget with eggs and meat. Inside the chicken coop there was a little loft, and the kids had made a play space up there. They’d left an old quilt on the floor.

He went out to the chicken coop. Climbed the ladder to the loft.

The floor was bare. Someone had removed the quilt.

At least he was under a roof. He lay down and tugged his jacket up around his neck. He shivered and breathed in the ammonia smell of chicken droppings, preparing for a long night.

He lay there for some time.

At last he heard the coop door creaking open. Quiet steps crossed the floor. The ladder creaked as someone climbed up to him.

In the darkness he felt a quilt being wrapped around him. Then strong arms enfolded him and held him, laying down behind him.

In his ear, he heard his father’s voice:

“Son, when I told you that if you disobeyed me you’d have to sleep outside, I never said that I’d be sleeping inside.”

A blessed Christmas to you all.