Here's a shortened version of a chapel devotion shared with FVL students by Pastor David Wenzel recently...
Each January our churches celebrate the festival of Epiphany. Epiphany marks the visit of the Wisemen or the Magi. We read about it in the Bible in Matthew chapter 2: “After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.”
Under our family’s Christmas tree this year, there were clothes for the girls, a Medal of Honor video game for the boys, a bracelet for my wife and a couple of “really cool” sweaters for me. What was under your Christmas tree? Some of you told me you got a new iPod touch … somebody else got gift cards … another student told me they got a laptop.
But there wasn’t any gold, incense, or myrrh for the Christ child under my Christmas tree, and probably not under yours either.
With our school’s “CHILDREN FEEDING THOUSANDS” effort, perhaps it would be worthwhile to look at these small bags of food as our gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh. The wisemen showed their devotion to Jesus by giving precious gifts to the Christ-child. We can still follow their example today and make a life-changing gift to others whom we may never meet on the other side of the world.
The Lord led the wisemen to Jesus with the help of a miraculous star. In the months ahead as we watch our progress in providing meals for starving children, a star won’t lead us to Bethlehem. Our Christ child is in heaven, and he doesn’t need a bag of rice for supper.
But there are thousands of children who do…children that God desperately wants in heaven…children for whom God put Jesus in a manger, children for whom God later nailed that Son to a cross.
$15 won’t buy you a plane ticket to Zambia so that you can share Jesus with a child. And the $15 of food that we are hoping each student and faculty member is able to send won’t give a child in Zambia faith. Only God’s Word can do that. But while we won’t be able to literally share God’s grace with these children, it will extend their time of grace and give those precious lives greater opportunity to hear of the saving message of a loving Savior.
It is God’s heartfelt desire…a desire he made clear to the whole world through his Son Jesus, that these children join you and me in heaven. Jesus himself said, “Whatever you do for one of the least of these, you have done for me.”
“CHILDREN FEEDING THOUSANDS” gives all of us, teachers and students alike, a chance to show our devotion to the Babe of Bethlehem. Your pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters – presented in love to your Savior -- will add up to a precious gift. And how precious would it be to meet some of the starving children we are helping in heaven one day!
May God bless our efforts to feed these children, and may God help us recognize how many blessings we have that we can share with those who have so little.
