During this far-from-normal Christmas season, here are truths and tools for renewing your sense of wonder and joy.
On Beyond Zebra—A Story About Impossibilities
In the children’s book, On Beyond Zebra, Dr. Seuss asks children to consider the possibility of seemingly impossible things:
Said Conrad Cornelius O'Donnell O'Dell,
my very young friend who was learning to spell,
“The A is for Ape. And the B is for Bear.
The C is for Camel. The H is for Hare.
The M is for Mouse. And the R is for Rat.
I know all the twenty-six letters like that
… through to Z is for Zebra. I know them all well,”
said Conrad Cornelius O'Donnell O'Dell.
“So now I know everything anyone knows
from beginning to end. From the start to the close
because Z is as far as the alphabet goes.”
"Then he almost fell flat on his face on the floor
when I picked up the chalk and drew one letter more!
A letter he had never dreamed of before!
And I said, “You can stop if you want with the Z,
because most people stop with the Z, but not me.
In the places I go, there are things that I see
that I never could spell if I stopped with a Z.
"I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends.
My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends.
My alphabet starts with this letter called YUZZ.
It's the letter I use to spell Yuzz-a-ma-Tuzz.
You'll be sort of surprised what there is to be found
once you go beyond Z and start poking around.
So on beyond Zebra! Explore! Like Columbus!
Discover new letters! Like WUM is for Wumbus,
my high-spouting whale who lives high on a hill
and who never comes down ‘till it's time to refill.
So, on beyond Z! It's high time you were shown
that you really don't know all there is to be known."
What does Dr. Seuss mean when he urges the children to go on beyond Zebra? He means to go beyond the realm of the possible.
Everyone knows that letters of the alphabet never exist on beyond Z ... on beyond Zebra!
And yet, On Beyond Zebra is where we find Christmas: in the realm of the impossible! Where a baby is born to a virgin. And where God comes to earth as a human being.
On Beyond Zebra—The First Christmas
The Angel's Announcement
In the biblical Christmas story in the book of Luke, an angel spun to Mary the most astounding On-Beyond-Zebra story ever told: Mary would give birth to the one and only Son of the Most High God!
But Mary, unable to fathom this, exclaimed, “But how can this happen, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34)
The angel answered that the Holy Spirit would come upon Mary and that—amazingly—she would conceive and give birth to God’s very own Son:
[Then] the angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. … For nothing is impossible with God”. (Luke 1:35,37)
The Virgin Birth
Did you notice that little word, “so,” in the Bible verse above? Mary got pregnant because of the Holy Spirit … AND SO that was the reason her baby would be the Son of God. Without the virgin birth, Jesus would not have been God’s Son!
So also, notice the word, “overshadowed” in the verse above. What does the Bible mean that the Holy Spirit “overshadowed” Mary?
Some people believe that God the Father was Jesus’ father in the usual sense, and that Jesus was therefore half God and half human. But that is not what happened with Mary.
What actually did happen seems even more impossible!
Because the fact is that Jesus existed long before Mary became pregnant. Jesus Christ is one of the three Persons of the Trinity. Therefore, He is God. And therefore, He has always existed:
In the beginning the Word [Jesus] already existed. (John 1:1)
Jesus was therefore not born in the normal sense.
Every human life has a beginning. I did not exist before I was conceived in my mother’s womb. Neither did you. Although our lives continue eternally into the future, we each have a definite beginning.
But Jesus existed before he was conceived as a human being in Mary’s womb. His life had no beginning and it has no ending. He exists eternally into the past and into the future. Only God can do that!
The Incarnation
So when Jesus came to earth as a baby, we call that His incarnation. “Incarnation” means “in the flesh.” That means Jesus already existed before His birth as a baby on earth. So God the Father incarnated Jesus without combining a man’s and a woman’s genetic materials.
Many people today find it very difficult to believe the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. It seems preposterous! But the virgin birth is essential to Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. He is not half human and half God, but He is fully human and fully God.
Jesus had to be both fully God and fully human. He had to be fully God so that He could forgive our sins. But He also had to be fully human to take our place on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.
The Skeptics
Even the atheistic one-time CNN talk-show host, current Hulu host, and master interviewer, Larry King, realized the importance of the virgin birth.
One day, someone asked King who in history he would most like to interview, and King quickly answered, “Jesus Christ.”
The questioner said, “And what would you like to ask Him?”
King replied, "I would like to ask Him if He was indeed virgin-born. The answer to that question would define history for me."
Of course, the virgin birth can’t be proven—CNN or Fox News did not cover that Middle Eastern breaking news!
The Truth
But the apostle Luke, the physician who wrote the book of Luke in the Bible—and who probably heard the story directly from Mary herself—believed in Jesus' virgin birth. So did the authors of the other New Testament books, and so did the early church and billions of people since then.
God did the impossible that first Christmas. And He still does the impossible today—all within the joy and wonder of His presence and power on Christmas Day and on every other day of the year.
On Beyond Zebra—Hope for Today
The angel told Mary that she would indeed give birth to the Son of God, because:
“Nothing is impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37)
Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that our Lord God is still the God of the Impossible, even in these troubled times?
The angel told Mary that the infant growing within her would be named “God with us”:
The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel—which means, "God with us.” (Matthew 1:23)
Do you believe that God is still with us? Or do you sometimes wonder if that is no longer true?
If you’re like me, and if you’re like a lot of people today, you know in your head that God still loves, is always with us, and is working for our good, as the apostle Paul said:
I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)
But sometimes, it can be difficult to believe in our hearts what we know in our heads.
During this most unsettling time, how can we recapture the wonder and awe of Christmas: that God still loves us, comes to us, and does seeming impossible things even today?
Warbler parents feeding a baby cuckoo
The Warbler and the Cuckoo
Every year in England, as the winter snows melt and the spring rains pour, an otherwise unremarkable bird heralds spring with its distinctively obnoxious call that bears its name: “Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!”
Amazingly, the cuckoo never builds its own nest. Instead, the female cuckoo searches for a nest built by another species of bird—specifically, a warbler’s nest, already laden with tiny warbler eggs.
The cuckoo waits until the female warbler temporarily flies away for food. Then the cuckoo swoops into warbler nest, hurriedly lays just one huge cuckoo egg in the midst of the little warbler eggs, and takes off again. That's the only parenting the cuckoo mom ever does!
The warbler parents, whose nest has now been invaded, return, circle, and glide into the wind back to the nest. Not being very good at arithmetic—nor very observant—the warbler parents don’t notice the extra big egg. So they get to work incubating all of the eggs. Eventually, four little warblers and one gigantic cuckoo hatch in the nest.
The one cuckoo bird is three or four times the size of the warbler babies. Every morning, the warbler parents fly away from the nest, finding worms and bringing them back to the nest. Circling the nest, the parents are greeted by four open little warbler mouths and one cavernous cuckoo maw, towering high above the smaller warblers.
Who do you think gets the vast majority of the worms? The very hungry and very tall cuckoo bird!
The baby cuckoo keeps growing bigger and bigger, and sadly, the little warblers get smaller and smaller. In fact, one of the best ways to find a baby cuckoo in a nest is simply to walk along a hedgerow until you find little dead warblers on the ground. The cuckoo throws them out one at a time.
What's the point?
What we feed grows and prevails!
If we want to grow a prevailing faith in God who still loves us and cares for us—if we want to live each day knowing deep in our hearts that He is still our God of wonder and joy who still does seemingly impossible things—we must do our part in feeding that kind of faith.
But if we feed the wrong things in our hearts and minds, those things will grow bigger and stronger in our thoughts and feelings. And then we’ll feel like those starved little warbler babies, pushed out of the nest by something that doesn’t belong there in the first place.
Feed the Warblers—Not the Cuckoos!
The truth is that—on that first Christmas so long ago—God sent us the wondrous gift of Himself in His one and only beloved Son.
Jesus Christ was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He was crucified, died, and was buried. On the third day, He rose again. By God’s grace through our faith in Jesus, we have joy and peace with God here on earth, and we have the promise of eternity with Him in heaven. And furthermore, the wonder, joy, power, and light of God shine brightly all around us every single day!
The same God who caused the “impossible” virgin birth of Christ still accomplishes the impossible in our lives today!
That’s the truth. Amen? Amen!
But how can we feed our faith—and starve the lies—so that we believe the awesome truth about God and His activity in in ourselves and in the world? How can we do that throughout the days, months, and years, not just at Christmas time?
How can we feed our faith so that it grows On Beyond Zebra?
How can we feed the warblers (faith and truth) instead of the cuckoos (fears and falsehoods) in our Christian life and calling?! Below are 3 biblical ways to do that.
1. Feed Your Brain
It matters what we read, watch, and hear. The apostle Paul said:
Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. (Philippians 4:8)
When we read, watch, and hear negative and worrisome things most of the day, that’s where our minds and hearts will camp. We’ll worry constantly about the bad things that could happen. We’ll believe less in God’s love and care. We’ll focus on what we lack instead of what we have. Instead of living with an attitude of gratitude, we’ll live in a fog of fear.
The eyeballs in our heads can’t focus on a near object and a far object at the same time. So also, our brains can’t focus on trouble and inspiration at the same time. It’s important to stay informed about what's happening in the world. But it’s even more important to focus on truth-based, godly optimism.
How to feed your brain with God’s truth and encouragement:
1. Spend more time with godly and encouraging media more than you do social media and the news.
2. Read and apply the Bible daily. Click here to get a practical tool for doing that. Or click here to get The Upper Room, an excellent daily devotional guide.
3. Listen to encouraging and God-focused truth, music, and inspiration. You can find them by Googling phrases such as “inspiring Christian music” or “inspiring Christian videos.” Below are a couple of examples for the Christmas season:
> The wonder and awe of Christmas: “Mary Did You Know” by Pentatonics:
> If you’re missing someone this Christmas: Check out this song by the Piano Guys:
4. Read the Christmas story in the Bible. Click the button below to see The Message version:
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to the Galilean village of Nazareth to a virgin engaged to be married to a man descended from David. His name was Joseph, and the virgin’s name, Mary.
Upon entering, Gabriel greeted her:
"Good morning!
You’re beautiful with God’s beauty,
Beautiful inside and out!
God be with you."
She was thoroughly shaken, wondering what was behind a greeting like that. But the angel assured her, “Mary, you have nothing to fear. God has a surprise for you: You will become pregnant and give birth to a son and call his name Jesus.
He will be great,
be called ‘Son of the Highest.’
The Lord God will give him
the throne of his father David;
He will rule Jacob’s house forever—
no end, ever, to his kingdom.”
Mary said to the angel, “But how? I’ve never slept with a man.”
The angel answered,
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
the power of the Highest hover over you;
Therefore, the child you bring to birth
will be called Holy, Son of God.
And did you know that your cousin Elizabeth conceived a son, old as she is? Everyone called her barren, and here she is six months pregnant! Nothing, you see, is impossible with God.”
And Mary said,
"Yes, I see it all now:
I’m the Lord’s maid, ready to serve.
Let it be with me
just as you say."
Then the angel left her.
About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David’s town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant.
While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel.
There were sheepherders camping in the neighborhood. They had set night watches over their sheep. Suddenly, God’s angel stood among them and God’s glory blazed around them. They were terrified.
The angel said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David’s town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you’re to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger.”
At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God’s praises:
"Glory to God in the heavenly heights,
Peace to all men and women on earth who please him."
As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the sheepherders talked it over. “Let’s get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us.”
They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.
2. Feed Your Hands, Feet, and Voice
According to Jewish law, Mary, the mother of Jesus, could have been killed by stoning, because she became pregnant without being married. Even so, she yielded to the will of God:
"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." (Luke 1:38)
Mary said yes to His promptings. And because of that, God did seemingly impossible things through her.
Being available and responsive to God is like a sailboat being available and responsive to the wind.
Many sailboats don’t have engines. Therefore, a sailor must be able to read the wind direction and speed. And having done that, the sailor must also work with the wind—setting the sails, positioning the rudder, and even leaning his or her body into the craft’s movements.
So also, we need to sense and respond to God, getting to know Him and developing our relationship with Him. Then, as we respond to His promptings, changing directions with Him and leaning into what He is doing, He grows our faith.
That means being God’s hands, feet, and voice—doing what He prompts us to do, and sharing our faith with others
How to feed your hands, feet, and voice by loving people in practical ways and verbally sharing with them your saving faith in Christ:
1. Discover what God has uniquely called you to do in this world. Click here for a resource for how to do that.
2. Share with someone how to “be saved” in Christ. Or renew your own assurance of your salvation. Click here for how to do that.
3. Feed Your Heart
Especially at Christmas time—and especially during a difficult Christmas—we need to feed our hearts.
The apostle Paul gave seeming impossible advice about how to do that:
Pray without ceasing. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
One time, as a little boy dashed out of the church after a worship service, he ran into the pastor. Sheepishly ducking his head and looking up at the pastor through his eyebrows, the boy apologized, "Pastor, I'm sorry for running into you. And I'm sorry I sneezed during your prayer today."
Chuckling and patting the boy on the shoulder, the pastor assured the boy that sneezing in church certainly was not a problem, but that he appreciated the apology.
The little boy nodded, confused, and declared, "Okay, but I know you told us to pray without sneezing!"
So also, many people also misunderstand the above Bible verse about “praying without ceasing"!
"Praying without ceasing" means to develop an ongoing relationship with God—praying not just when we need something, or even just when we’re confessing sin or praising Him.
Immediately after Jack Dorsey and others launched Twitter in 2006, users tweeted, dozens of times each day, their answers to this question:
"What are you doing right now?"
Today, Twitter users rarely tweet their answers to that question anymore.
But the question illustrates the kind of relationship God wants with us, and the kind of relationship that will most fill our hearts. As we spend time with Him and grow with Him in new ways—we will love and trust Him so much that He truly will be all we need.
How to feed your heart by growing your relationship with God in brand-new ways:
1. Grow in your ability to have daily conversations with God. Click here for a blog about how to do that.
2. Grow in the number of ways that you interact with God. Click here for a blog about how to grow in Christ through journaling.
What About You?
1. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being "very high" and 1 being "very low," how would you describe your degree of wonder and awe this Christmas?
2. What thoughts and emotions did you experience when you read the above excerpt from Dr. Zeuss’ book, On Beyond Zebra?
3. What new insights or sense of wonder did you get from the section above about the first Christmas when Jesus was born?
4. How did God speak to you through the Bible verses in this blog?
5. What do you think about the virgin birth of Jesus, Larry King’s comment about the virgin birth, and why the virgin birth is important?
6. How did God speak to you through the illustration about the warbler and the cuckoo?
7. Think about this statement: "What we feed grows." What are you feeding most, social media and news, or God’s truth and time with Him?
8. What did you learn from the illustrations about the eyeball, the sailboat, and Twitter?
9. Which of the practical steps, listed in the boxes above, will you do to feed your brain, hands, feet, voice, and heart, this Christmas?
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