Christmas miracle from China

It was the greatest miracle that ever happened to Duan, and he would not have experienced it had his bus not broken down. Traveling from a northern to a southern province of China one chilly December day, he happened to be passing through Henan Province when the engine of the bus couldn't make it any longer. On  whim, Duan trudged off through the fields, leaving the other passengers huddled inside the bus. He was a house church leader in northern China and at 77 years old, he still had no home to call his own. The truth is, he was deeply depressed. He was on his way to mediate a dispute among church leaders and was weary of all the infighting that seemed to be harming the house churches. And he was lonely.  As he crossed the frozen field, Duan thought longingly of his wife who had died years earlier. He wished she was alive to listen to him and give her sweet counsel. And then the thought of his little boy came into his tired mind, and an even darker cloud settled over his heart.

He found a village and knocked on a door. A little cross was notched on the doorpost. "Is there anyone here who loves the Lord?" he asked. The door was opened by a man in his fifties and Duan was warmly welcomed inside. His feet were washed in a basin-the custom of welcoming a stranger to their home, and he was fed hot congee and steaming vegetables. He noticed that the family members were excited. It turned out they would be traveling to a neighboring town to hear a dynamic Bible teacher from a large city.  "What's his name?" asked Duan. "Brother Wang," they replied. As they made their way to the meeting, they told Duan stories about this mysterious Brother Wang. It was clear they loved him dearly, and the men explained why. "We once held a training seminar here and heard the police were coming to arrest us. Brother Wang helped everyone escape, except our main pastor. When the police arrived, Wang dared to bargain with them. He offered to go to prison if our pastor, whose wife was 8 months pregnant, would be allowed to go free. The officers accepted his terms, and Brother Wang spent the next thre years in prison." "How old is brother Wang?" Duan asked. When told he was in his early 40's, Duan's face showed great pain. "What's the matter?" he was asked. "Are you sick?""No, I'm just very sad. I once had a son, whom I knew for just two months. He's dead now, but if alive he would have been 42 today. My wife called him the 'Christmas Child' since he was born at Christmas time. I called him 'Isaac', because we had despaired for so long of having a child." There was silence as they rode in the open cart under the stars.

Brother Duan told the incredible story of how he and his wife had been evangelists in the the 50's. They refused to join the government church and an unbeliever named Wu kept accusing them of political and criminal offenses. It was only a matter of time before they were imprisoned or killed, but what would happen to their baby boy? One nigh Duan's wife heard a strong voice in a vision saying, "Give your son to your enemy." Knowing nothing about this, Duan read Genesis 22:2 the following morning: "Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you." Sharing their impressions, the couple decided on a course of action that had caused Duan to wince in pain everyday since. They gave their boy to Wu and his wife-who was childless-even as Wu arranged for the couple's arrest. It wasn't until 1978, when Duan was released from prison, that he learned what had happened to his wife and son. She had died in the terrible famine of 1958, and his son had disappeared along with the Wu family under the rubble of a devastating earthquake in 1975. Said Duan as the cart approached the meeting place, "God judged me for being so irresponsible with my little son. "

As they arrived at the place where the evangelist was to speak, a crowd of 200 people were already packed into the house. Like many others, Duan had to sit in the courtyard and listen to the teacher through an open window. When Brother Wang began preaching, Duan felt a terrible shock. It was like a hearing himself! He began to tremble with fear. Even the phrases the teacher used sounded familiar. Confused, he staggered up to the window to see the preacher, causing a commotion as he fell over people. The preacher stopped, and there was a moment of shocked silence as the two stared at each other. The crowd was hushed as they realized the amazing physical likeness between the two men. "I'm sorry for interrupting your excellent message," Duan began. "You see, I had a son who would be your age right now. If he had lived, he would have looked and sounded just like you." Brother Wang began to tremble violently. Suddenly, his legs buckled beneath him and he had to be caught before he fell to the floor. Clutching his pounding chest, he sobbed, "Are you Daddy Duan?" Everyone wept as father and son were reunited.

The preacher told how he had indeed been brought up by Wu, who was so impressed by Duan's selfless act that he had become a strong Christian. "I'm not your father," Wu used to say to him. "Your real father is a great man of God, full of grace and love. He gave you to me, and I give you all my love and the encouragement to put God first, just like your real dad would have done." Wang's adopted parents had moved away from the earthquake zone before the tragedy, but both had died of cancer in their 60's. Wang became an evangelist and tried to find his real father, but Duan had changed his name to avoid arrest. As father and son continued to hug and weep, the elder of the church stood up and declared, "It's December. We have seen our sermon tonight: Christ came into the world to save sinners-that is the essence of Christmas. Just as Duan handed his only son into the care of his enemy, so God handed over His own Son to us sinners. Let us rejoice in their reconciliation and ours too."