Christmas Stories Read online

  CHRISTMAS

  STORIES

  INSPIRATIONAL

  On the Anvil (1985)

  No Wonder They Call Him the Savior (1986)

  God Came Near (1987)

  Six Hours One Friday (1989)

  The Applause of Heaven (1990)

  In the Eye of the Storm (1991)

  And the Angels Were Silent (1992)

  He Still Moves Stones (1993)

  When God Whispers Your Name (1994)

  A Gentle Thunder (1995)

  In the Grip of Grace (1996)

  The Great House of God (1997)

  Just Like Jesus (1998)

  When Christ Comes (1999)

  He Chose the Nails (2000)

  Traveling Light (2001)

  A Love Worth Giving (2002)

  Next Door Savior (2003)

  Come Thirsty (2004)

  It’s Not About Me (2004)

  Cure for the Common Life (2005)

  Facing Your Giants (2006)

  3:16 (2007)

  Every Day Deserves a Chance (2007)

  Cast of Characters (2008)

  Fearless (2009)

  Outlive Your Life (2010)

  Max on Life (2011)

  GIFT BOOKS

  A Heart Like Jesus

  Everyday Blessings

  For These Tough Times

  God’s Mirror

  God’s Promises for You

  God Thinks You’re Wonderful

  Grace for the Moment, Vols. I & II

  Grace for the Moment Journal

  In the Beginning

  Just for You

  Just Like Jesus Devotional

  Let the Journey Begin

  Max on Life series

  Mocha with Max

  One Incredible Moment

  Safe in the Shepherd’s Arms

  The Cross

  The Gift for All People

  The Greatest Moments

  Traveling Light for Mothers

  Traveling Light Journal

  Turn

  Walking with the Savior

  You: God’s Brand-New Idea!

  BIBLES (GENERAL EDITOR)

  Grace for the Moment Daily Bible

  He Did This Just for You (New Testament)

  The Devotional Bible

  The Lucado Life Lessons Study Bible

  CHRISTMAS

  STORIES

  HEARTWARMING TALES of

  ANGELS, A MANGER,

  AND the BIRTH of HOPE

  MAX LUCADO

  The Christmas Child © 2003 by Max Lucado, previously published as The Christmas Cross

  Jacob’s Gift © 1998 by Max Lucado

  The Christmas Candle © 2006 by Max Lucado

  An Angel’s Story © 2002, 2004 by Max Lucado, previously published as Cosmic Christmas

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  An Angel’s Story is based in part on a story by David Lambert entitled “Earthward, Earthward, Messenger Bright,” which first appeared in the December 1982 issue of Moody Monthly. “Earthward, Earthward, Messenger Bright” © 1982, 1990 by David Lambert.

  Scripture quotations marked NKJV are from New King James Version®. © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

  Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-4016-8543-0

  Printed in the United States

  11 12 13 14 15 16 QG 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FOR DR. JIM MARTIN. WHILE THERE IS ONLY ONE GREAT PHYSICIAN, YOU COME AS CLOSE AS ANY DOC I KNOW. THANKS FOR BRINGING HEALTH AND HOPE TO THOUSANDS OF FAMILIES—ESPECIALLY MINE.

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  PART I: CHRIST IS CELEBRATED

  The Christmas Candle

  Maybe He Is the Messiah

  The Christmas Child

  The Answer Is Yes

  The North Pole or the Manger?

  PART II: CHRIST IS BORN

  Gabriel’s Questions

  The Night in the Stable

  No Room in the Inn

  Jacob’s Gift

  An Angel's Story

  Tiny Mouth, Tiny Feet

  PREFACE

  The world was different this week. It was temporarily transformed.

  The magical dust of Christmas glittered on the cheeks of humanity ever so briefly, reminding us of what is worth having and what we were intended to be.

  We forgot our compulsion with winning, wooing, and warring. We put away our ladders and ledgers; we hung up our stopwatches and weapons. We stepped off our race tracks and roller coasters and looked outward toward the star of Bethlehem.

  We reminded ourselves that Jesus came as a babe, born in a manger.

  I’d like to suggest that we remind ourselves he still comes.

  He comes to those as small as Mary’s baby and as poor as a carpenter’s boy.

  He comes to those as young as a Nazarene teenager and as forgotten as an unnoticed kid in an obscure village.

  He comes to those as busy as the oldest son of a large family, to those as stressed as the leader of restless disciples, to those as tired as one with no pillow for his head.

  He comes and gives us the gift of himself.

  Sunsets steal our breath. Caribbean blue stills our hearts. Newborn babies stir our tears. Lifelong love bejewels our lives. But take all these away—strip away the sunsets, oceans, cooing babies, and tender hearts—and leave us in the Sahara, and we still have reason to dance in the sand. Why? Because God is with us.

  He comes to all. He speaks to all. Let’s let him speak to us this Christmas.

  MAX LUCADO

  Part I

  CHRIST IS

  CELEBRATED

  When you give a word of

  kindness to someone who needs

  it, that’s an act of worship.

  —MAX LUCADO

  THE

  CHRISTMAS

  CANDLE

  FROM THE DESK OF MAX LUCADO

  Christmas celebrates a coming. An arrival. An advent. Christmas remembers God showing up. Not showing off with angel-driven chariots or Magic Kingdom fireworks. But showing up on a donkey, with a carpenter in the belly of a peasant girl. Christmas commemorates God’s most uncommon decision: to come commonly.

  And Christmas wonders if he still does. If he shows up amidst the regular folk in the sleepy moments of life. This story, “The Christmas Candle,” welcomes such wonderings. If he came to Bethlehem, might he not come to Gladstone, England? And, if he touched the world of a carpenter, wouldn’t he touch the world of a candle maker? I think so.

  Even more, he would touch our world too.

  PROLOGUE

  DECEMBER 1664

  Light exploded in the
small house, making midnight seem as daylight. The bearded candle maker and his wife popped up in bed.

  “Wh-wh-what is it?” she asked, trembling.

  “Don’t move!”

  “But the children?”

  “They’re sleeping. Stay where you are!”

  The wife pulled the blanket up to her chin and took a quick look around the shadowless room: children asleep on the floor, the table and chairs resting near the hearth, tools piled in the corner.

  The candle maker never shifted his wide-eyed gaze. The figure wore a singular flame: a heatless tongue stretching from ceiling to floor. His form moved within the blaze: a torso, head, and two arms. He reached out of the radiance and extended a finger toward a rack of hanging candles. When he did, the couple squeezed together and slid farther back in the bed.

  The husband mustered a question: “Are you going to hurt us?”

  The visitor gave no reply. He waited, as if to ensure the couple was watching, touched one of the candles, and then vanished.

  The room darkened, and the just-touched candle glowed. The man instinctively reached for it, stepping quickly out of bed and across the room, grabbing the candle just as the light diminished.

  He looked at his wife. She gulped.

  “What just happened?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  He moved to the table and sat. She hurried to do the same.

  “An angel?” she wondered aloud.

  “Must be.”

  He placed the candle on the table, and both stared at it. Neither knew what to say or to think.

  The next morning found them still sitting. Still staring.

  Their children awoke, so they ate breakfast, dressed warmly, and walked the half mile up Bristol Lane to St. Mark’s Church for the celebration of the final Sunday of Advent. The candle maker gave the rector extra candles for the Advent service but kept the angel-touched candle in his coat pocket. He started to mention the visitation to the reverend but stopped short. He won’t believe me.

  The couple tried to concentrate on the sermon but couldn’t. Their minds kept reliving the light, the angel, and the glowing candle.

  They shared a pew with a young mother and her two children, all three disheveled and dirty. The couple knew her, knew how her husband, a servant to a baron, had died a month before in a hunt.

  After the service, the widow described her plight to them. “We have little food left. Enough for a few days.”

  The chandler’s wife reached into her husband’s coat pocket for a coin. When she did, she felt the candle. She handed both to the young mother, inviting, “Light this and pray.” As the young mother turned to leave, the wife looked at her husband and shrugged as if to say, “What harm?”

  He nodded.

  They spoke some about the candle over the next few days but not much. Both were willing to dismiss it as a dream, perhaps a vision.

  The Christmas Eve service changed that. It began with a time of blessing-sharing. Anyone in the congregation who wanted to give public thanks to God could do so. When the rector asked for volunteers, the young mother stood up. The same woman who, days earlier, had appeared unkempt and hungry. This night she beamed. She told the congregation how a wealthy uncle in a nearby county had given her a farm as a gift. The farm was a godsend. She could live in the house and lease the land and support her family. She looked straight at the candle maker and his wife as she said, “I prayed. I lit the candle and prayed.”

  The couple looked at each other. They suspected a connection between the candle and the answered prayer, but who knew for sure?

  CHAPTER 1

  Afternoon

  MAY 4, 1864

  I just think it odd that Oxford would assign its top student to a village like Gladstone,” Edward Haddington said to his wife, Bea. A broad-shouldered man with a brilliant set of dark eyes and full gray eyebrows, he wrestled to button the waistcoat over his rotund belly.

  Equally plump Bea was having troubles of her own. “How long since I wore this dress?” she wondered aloud. “Must I let it out again?” Then louder, “Edward, hurry. He’s due within the hour.”

  “Don’t you think it odd?”

  “I don’t know what to think, dear. But I know we need to leave now if we don’t want to be late. He arrives at half past one.”

  The couple hurried out of the small, gabled house and scurried the half mile south on Bristol Lane toward the center of the village. They weren’t alone. A dozen or more villagers walked ahead of them. By the time Edward and Bea reached the town commons, at least half the citizens of Gladstone, some sixty people, stood staring northward. No one noticed the white-haired couple. All eyes were on the inbound wagon.

  The driver pulled the horses to a halt, and a young man stood to exit. He bore beady eyes, a pointed chin, and his angular nose seemed to descend forever before finding a place to stop. With a tall hat in his hand and a black coat draped on his shoulders, Rev. David Richmond surveyed the crowd. Edward detected a sigh.

  “We must appear odd to him,” he whispered to Bea.

  She cupped an ear toward him. “What?”

  He shook his head, not wanting to risk being overheard.

  A goggle-eyed locksmith, so humped from filing he had to greet the guest with a sideways, upward glance, extended the first hello. Next came a short farmer and his Herculean, simpleminded son. “He can clean the windows in the church,” the father offered. “He did for Reverend Pillington.” A mill worker asked Reverend Richmond if he liked to fish. Before he could reply, a laborer invited the minister to join him and his friends at the pub.

  “Let the man breathe, dear people. Let him breathe.” The citizens parted to let Edward extend his hand. “A fine welcome to Gladstone, Reverend. Did you enjoy the carriage ride?”

  Reverend Richmond had ample reason to say yes. Spring had decked the Cotswolds in her finest fashions. Waist-high stone walls framed the fields. Puffy flocks dotted the pastures. Crows scavenged seeds from melting snow. May clouds passed and parted, permitting sunlight to glint off the shallow creeks. England at her best. Yet the minister replied with an unconvincing, “It was pleasant.”

  Edward picked up the clergyman’s bag and led him through the crowd. “We’ll deposit your things at the parsonage and let you freshen up. Then I’ll leave you with the Barstow family for tea.”

  As the crowd dispersed, the reverend nodded and followed his hosts toward the manse. It sat in the shadow of St. Mark’s Church, which was only a stone’s throw from the center of town. The hoary, dog-toothed Norman tower stood guard over the village. Edward paused in front of the church gate and invited, “Would you like to take a look inside?”

  The guest nodded, and the three entered the grounds.

  A cemetery separated the church from the road. “To preach to the living, you have to pass through the dead,” Edward quipped.

  “Edward!” Bea corrected.

  Reverend Richmond offered no reply.

  The walls of the path through the cemetery were, at points, shoulder high, elevating the headstones to eye level. The newest one lay beneath the tallest yew tree near the church entrance and marked the burial place of St. Mark’s former rector. Edward and Bea paused, giving Richmond time to read the inscription:

  REVEREND P. PILINGTON

  MAN OF GOD.

  MAN OF FAITH.

  MAN OF GLADSTONE.

  OURS, BUT FOR A MOMENT.

  GOD’S FOREVER.

  1789–1864

  “This month we’d have celebrated his fiftieth year at the church,” said Bea.

  “When did he die?” the reverend asked.

  “February,” Edward answered. “Hard winter. Pneumonia took him.”

  “God took him,” Bea altered.

  Edward nodded. “We dearly loved the man. You’ll find his fingerprints throughout the valley. He taught us to trust, to pray. He even taught me to read and write.”

  Bea chimed in. “Edward here was a diligent student.
Come ahead. Let’s step inside.”

  The heavy doors opened to the rear of the sanctuary. Three shafts of stained-glass sunlight spilled through tall windows. “My grandfather helped install those,” Edward offered. He strode the five short steps to the baptismal font and motioned for the reverend to join him. “Dates back two centuries,” Edward said, running a finger along the limestone. “My ancestors were all baptized here. In fact, my great-great—Bea, how many ‘greats’ is it?”

  She placed a finger to her lips. “Let the reverend meditate.”

  Edward apologized with a wave and stepped back.

  One aisle separated two groups of ten pews. A lectern faced the seats on the left, and a pulpit presided over the church from the right. Brass organ pipes climbed the chancel wall behind the pulpit, where two sets of choir benches faced each other.

  “My Bea plays the organ,” Edward boasted.

  The clergyman didn’t respond. He made the short walk to the front and stopped at the first of the five swaybacked stone steps leading up to the pulpit. A thick Bible and empty glass rested on the stand.

  “Been vacant since February,” Edward offered.

  Reverend Richmond turned with a puzzled look. “No minister filled in?”

  Bea shook her head. “Only on occasion. Gladstone is too remote for most clergymen. But we’ve gotten by.”

  “Right,” Reverend Richmond said, suddenly ready to leave. “Shall we move on?”

  Bea extended a hand. “I’ll go home and prepare some dinner. Reverend, enjoy your visit to Gladstone.”

  Edward showed the minister the parsonage and waited outside until he was ready for the first appointment of the afternoon.

  Charles Barstow cut an imposing figure standing in his doorway: thick shoulders, long face, hollow cheeks flanked by snow-white sideburns, and eyebrows as thick as hedges.

  As Edward presented the reverend, he explained, “Charles runs the local mercantile. Need boots, hats, or hammers? He can help you.”

  Richmond noted the fine house: ivy framed its dormers; jasmine and roses charmed the porch.