Grains of Sand

verdin.com (Google Images) Many of us are familiar with the Christmas carol, " I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day " from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. However, many of us are not aware that some of the verses to the poem were excised from the song that we now sing. Longfellow wrote the poem on Christmas Day during the Civil War between the states. He had lost his wife and his son had been badly wounded in the war between brothers. The poem expresses his feelings about that time. CHRISTMAS BELLS (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1863) I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play,     And wild and sweet     The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom     Had rolled along     The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Till, ringing, singing on its way, The world revolved from night to day, ...

Google Images Very little is said about Joseph, the earthy father of Jesus, in the Scriptures. In fact, very little is said about Mary either. But here in Matthew 1 we discover a little about the character of the man whose God-given responsibility was caring for the child, Jesus. Mary was “ pledged ” to Joseph (Matthew 1:18) which was as good as being married. So when it was discovered that she was pregnant, and not with Joseph’s child, the man had options to consider. The law said that Mary could be publicly stoned to death for her betrayal of the man to whom she was promised. Many men, to defend their honour (or satisfy their jealous and/or vindictive nature), would have been happy to throw the first stone. But not Joseph. “ Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public shame, he had in mind to divorce her quietly ” (1:19). A legalistic man would have had Mary stoned. A righteous man viewed her with compassion and wished to do her as litt...