I'm Coming Down There Myself!

In the play Green Pastures, which ran for many years on Broadway, playwright Marc Connelly has a moving and memorable scene. The Lord is anxiously looking out over the parapets of heaven, trying to decide what to do with the sinful situation on earth. Gabriel enters with his horn tucked under his arm. Sensing the Lord's dilemma, he brushes his lips across the trumpet to keep the feel of it and asks, "Lord, has the time come for me to blow the trumpet?" "No, no," said the Lord, "don't touch the trumpet, not yet." God continues to worry with the problem. Gabriel asks the Lord again what he plans to do. Will he send someone to tend to the situation? Who will it be? Gabriel makes some suggestions. "How about another David or Moses? You could send one of the prophets: Isaiah or Jeremiah. There are lots of great prophets up here. What do you think, Lord?" Without looking back at Gabriel, God said, "I am not going to send anyone. This time I am going myself!!" The Rev. Dr. Thomas Lane Butts, in his sermon, "A Permanent Glimpse of God"

Room at the Inn

John Simmons tells about a grade school class that was putting on a Christmas play which included the story of Mary and Joseph coming to the inn. In that class was one little boy who wanted so very much to be Joseph. But when the parts were handed out, his biggest rival was given that part, and he was assigned to be the inn keeper instead. 
He was really bitter about this, so during all the rehearsals he began to plot how to get even with his rival.
Finally, the night of the performance, Mary and Joseph came walking across the stage. They knocked on the door of the inn, and the inn-keeper opened the door and asked them gruffly what they wanted. 
Joseph answered, "We’d like to have a room for the night."
Suddenly the inn-keeper threw the door wide open and said, "Great, come on in and I’ll give you the best room in the house."
Now, that wasn’t in the script and for a few seconds poor little kid didn’t know what to do. 
But finally the young Joseph had an idea. He stepped up to the innkeeper, and looked beyond him through the door that represented the inn. He made a big production of looking right and left. He stepped back out beside his “wife” and said, "No wife of mine is going to stay in dump like this. Come on, Mary, let’s go to the barn." 

Found online at: http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/a-blue-christmas-jeff-strite-sermon-on-christmas-142077.asp

I Want to be God

    "Once upon a time there lived a fisherman and his wife.  Their
       home was a humble two roomed cottage with a tiny garden and a
       well.  Every day the fisherman would go out in his little boat
       and in the evening bring home his catch, sometimes good,
       sometimes poor.  This was their livelihood.

       But the fisherman's wife was discontented.  "Why should I have to
       live in this hovel?  Is it too much to expect a decent home with
       water and electricity and a kitchen?   I wish I was a lady."  
       Her continual grousing made the fisherman quite miserable.

       One day, something happened which changed their lives.  The man
       caught a strange and beautiful fish which startled him by
       speaking.  "Please thrown me back into the sea and I'll grant
       whatever you wish."

       The fisherman thought a bit and then replied, "So be it.  I wish
       my wife was a lady and lived in a proper house with water,
       electricity and a kitchen."

       When he returned that evening he found that his wish had been
       granted, and his wife was very pleased.  But as the months passed
       she began to grumble again, "Is it too much to expect something
       better than this pokey house?  I wish I was a Duchess, with a
       mansion and servants and a carriage.  Why did you ask for so
       little?  I'm sure the fish meant us to do better than this."

       Driven by her complaints nagging, the fisherman tried to contact
       the fish again and rowed his boat to the spot.  No sooner had he
       called than the fish appeared and agreed to his request.

       But the duchess was still not satisfied.  Within a month she was
       grumbling and complaining again.  "I wish I was a queen, go and
       see your fish again".  And so he did.

       Life in the palace was luxurious, but the fisherman's wife, now a
       queen, wasn't content for long.  "What I would really like" she
       said, "would be to be God.  I'm sure your fish will understand
       that this is what I wanted all along."

       When the man returned from his last visit to his fishy friend, he
       found no palace on the shore, no mansion, not a  house.  Not even
       his little old cottage was there.  But then he heard crying, and
       noticing a cave in the cliff face, he went closer.  Inside it was
       fashioned into a rough stable.  There were 2 oxen and a donkey. 
       And in the manger a little baby lay crying."

       The fisherman's wife had her wish.

The wife in our rewrite of the story had, of course, forgotten what God is
like in this world, in human flesh.

She'd forgotten about Christmas and Passiontide.  
       She'd forgotten about the manger and the cross.  
            She'd forgotten that our God is a God who comes and who
identifies with his people, and especially with the poorest and the most
humble of people

It is so easy to forget what it cost Jesus to come to earth as one of us.

[from Rev. Richard J. Fairfield: http://www.rockies.net/~spirit/sermons/a-ad04su.php]