It was a blustery, stormy Christmas Eve. A strong wind from the north was blowing the falling snow into drifts. All the earth was blanketed in white as night settled down on a small town in the Midwest.
A busy pastor, weary from making last-minute calls before Christmas, was approaching his home afoot when he passed a boy in his early teens. Something unusual about the boy caused the pastor to slow down a bit. The youngster was carrying on his back a heavy burden. He puffed as he walked, and his breath was visible in the cold crisp evening air.
“You have quite a load for a boy your size,” the preacher said.
Stopping momentarily, the red-faced youngster replied with a smile in his voice, “Oh, he ain’t heavy, mister, he’s my brother.”
Sure enough, he had a small boy on his back. The pastor wished them both a merry Christmas and stood motionless in the snow as he watched the boy and his brother disappear in the darkness.
He could not get the boys out of his mind. “What a sermon for Christmas!” he thought as he made his way up the walk to his home. “He ain’t heavy, mister, he’s my brother.”
Surely this Christmas season you and I will know many troubled, overburdened, discouraged souls to whom we can give a lift. And after all, they are our brothers (and sisters)—yours and mine.
—By C.L. Paddock, Signs of the Times, December 21, 1954. December 2005 Signs of the Times Email Newsletter
