What a difference has Christmas made? The story, The Rabbi’s Gift, by Fancis Dorff, shows us.

There was a famous monastery which had fallen on very hard times. In times past its many buildings were filled with young monks and its big church resounded with the singing of the chant, but now it was deserted. People no longer came there to be nourished by prayer. A handful of old monks shuffled through the cloisters and praised their God with heavy hearts.

On the edge of the monastery woods, an old rabbi had built a little hut. He would come there from time to time to fast and pray. No one ever spoke to him, but whenever he appeared, the word would be passed from monk to monk: “The rabbi walks in the woods.” And, for as long as he was there, the monks would feel sustained by his prayerful presence.

One day the abbot decided to visit the rabbi and to open his heart to him. so, after the morning Eucharist, he set out through the woods. As he approached the hut, the abbot saw the rabbi standing in the doorway, his arms outstretched in welcome. It was as though he had been waiting there for some time. The two embraced like long-lost brothers. They stepped back and just stood there, smiling at one another with smiles their faces could hardly contain.

After a while the rabbi motioned the abbot to enter. In the middle of the room was a wooden table with the Scriptures open on it. They sat there for a moment, in the presence of the Book. Then the rabbi began to cry. The abbot could not contain himself. He covered his face with his hands and he began to cry too. For the first time in his life, he cried his heart out. The two men sat there like lost children, filling the hut with their sobs and wetting the wood of the table with their tears.

After the tears had ceased to flow and all was quiet again, the rabbi lifted his head. “You and your brothers are serving God with heavy hearts,” he said. “You have come to ask a teaching of me. I will give you a teaching, but you can only repeat it once. After that, no one must ever say it aloud again.”

The rabbi looked straight at the abbot and said, “The Messiah is among you.”

For a while, all was silent. then the rabbi said, “Now you must go.”

The abbot left without a word and without ever looking back.

The next morning, the abbot called his monks together in the chapter room. He told them he had received a teaching form “the rabbi who walks in the woods” and that his teaching was never to be spoken aloud. Then he looked at each of his brothers and said, “The rabbi said that one of us is the Messiah.”

The monks were startled by this saying. “What could it mean?” they asked themselves. “Is brother John the Messiah? Or Father Matthew? Or Brother Thomas? Am I the Messiah? What could this mean?”

They were all deeply puzzled by the rabbi’s teaching. But no one ever mentioned it again.

As time went by, the monks began to treat one another with a very special reverence. There was a gentle, wholehearted, human quality about them now which was hard to describe but easy to notice. They lived with one another as men who had finally found something. But they prayed the Scriptures together as men who were always looking for something. Occasionally visitors found themselves deeply moved by the life of these monks. Before long, people were coming from far and wide to be nourished by the prayer life of the monks and the young men were asking, once again, to become part of the community.

In those days, the rabbi no longer walked in the woods. His hut had fallen into ruins. But, somehow or other, the old monks who had taken his teaching to heart still felt sustained by his prayerful presence.

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Christmas, the birth of Jesus, the coming of the Messiah, the coming of God in human flesh, made a difference in human history. Like the coming of the Messiah to the monastery fallen on hard times, the coming of the Messiah into the world has made a difference in all our relationships.

The coming of the Messiah among us has made a difference in our relationship with God. The birth of Jesus showed us that God loves us so much that he wants to be with us.  Jesus is called “Immanuel,” which means God is with us. The birth of Christ showed us once and for all that we are not alone in this universe. God is with us. The birth of Jesus showed us that God loves us so much that he would not let our sin and failure stand in the way between us and him. Jesus is called “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

The coming of the Messiah among us has made a difference in our relationships with each other. As knowing the Messiah was among them changed the way the monks treated each other, so knowing Jesus is among us changes the way we treat each other as we practice his presence among us.

Imagine how different this world would be without Christmas, without Christ, without the Messiah among us!

Christmas makes a difference when we open our hearts to the Messiah among us.
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