A doctor approached an anxious father in the waiting room of a New. York City hospital and informed him that his child had lived but two hours after birth. As the sympathetic doctor turned away, the quick-thinking father said, “I read only recently about the need of human eyes for corneal operations. Could my baby’s eyes be used to enable someone to see again?”

The next day, two corneal transplants were performed in two different hospitals. In one, sight was restored to a working man with a large family. In the other, sight was given to a mother. A babe who had lived but two hours gave physical sight to two needy people.

Nearly two thousand years ago, a baby was born in a dark stable in Bethlehem. The prophet Isaiah had written of the impact of His birth as that of light and sight coming to a dark world: “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:2).

Though His life was not long, the child born that night has imparted spiritual sight and insight to millions. The eloquent Phillips Brooks once said: “I am far within the mark when I say that all armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life — the life of Christ.”

In his famous hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” Brooks made it personal: “No ear may hear His coming, But in this world of sin, Where meek souls will receive Him still — The dear Christ enters in.”