Carty’s Contemporary Classics - The Story of Bearington Bunny | Christian Podcast Central

Описание: Carty’s Contemporary Classics - The Story of Bearington Bunny | Christian Podcast Central

#BearingtonBunny #TheStoryofBearingtonBunny #ChristianPodcastCentral

A story of a bunny who gets lost in the forest on Christmas Eve. He is all alone and has no family to spend Christmas Eve with during that cold winter night. Barrington then meets a mysterious silver wolf who teaches him the true meaning of Christmas. It's not what you expect.

As I pondered what message to share at Jerome UMC on Christmas Eve in a December that felt much darker than most, I remembered a couple of wonderful stories that spoke to me, and I hope will to you also. As I thought about the struggle between good and evil in human nature, the first story that came to me is a Native American legend about a young child asking a grandparent why some people are kind and loving and others seem so cruel and violent. The grandparent responded that there is a constant struggle in every person between two wolves, one that is compassionate and nurturing, and another that is selfish and mean. “But which wolf wins that struggle?” asked the child. “The one we feed and nurture,” came the reply.

The image of the wolf reminded me of the second story, one that I had not told or thought about in years. It is in a collection of short stories by Martin Bell, and the book is called, The Way of the Wolf, where the wolf is a metaphor for God. When I looked for the story on line I was blessed to find an excellent introduction and conclusion to this story which I adapted slightly, but want to give credit to stjohns-online.org for setting the context. Here’s the message I shared at the 11 pm Christmas Eve service at my church, Jerome UMC near Dublin, Ohio:

Christmas is a time for telling stories. Some are ancient stories: about shepherds and angels and a baby born in a barn. Some of them are stories from our childhood – stories of elves and flying red-nosed reindeer, of snowmen who come to life under the spell of Christmas magic, and of Santa Claus. Each season brings new stories, stories that capture in a new way some of the miracle of the first story, the story of God’s love for us – a love so deep and marvelous that it came alive one night – it became “Emmanuel,” “God with us.”

We tell stories because they touch our hearts and not just our minds. They help us enter into the mystery of Truth that is larger than our reason and logic can explain. Stories reveal different levels of truth that reach us wherever we are ready to receive them on any given day. Christmas is a time for telling stories.

So often the story of Jesus is portrayed as a kind of romantic, sentimental tale – not unlike the decorations and secular stories and carols we hear this time of the year. Christmas is seen as a time of fellowship and fine food, a time to put aside just for a while, the things that divide us, at least until the After-Christmas sales. It is forgotten how marvelous and how expensive a gift Christmas really is, that the manger and the cross are both made of the same wood; that this small child, this enfleshment of God’s love, was sent not just to be a gift, another trinket for us to wear around our necks for a season, but came to show us what God’s love is all about – a love that is willing to die for us, a love that came as the angels told the shepherds that is to save us from all fear and give us eternal peace.

That is where Christmas really begins. That is why we tell the Christmas story again tonight – because of who Jesus became, what he taught, how he lived, and how he died but lives eternally. Tonight we celebrate the greatness of the Christmas gift. And we remember the cost. To do that, I’d like to share the story of God’s love for us, even as Jesus often did, through the telling of another story – a kind of parable by Martin Bell, “The Tale of Barrington Bunny.”



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