Fear not

After Luke 2:10-14 

The presence is blinding,

a great light, not

the greatest light

but a lesser light, still

blinding in radiance,

proclaiming the light

of the good news,

the best news, this day

is born a Savior.

A sign is given,

a map, a guide:

a baby swaddled,

a baby lying in a manger.

The light, suddenly,

Joined by voices,

a host of heaven,

praising and proclaiming,

“Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace, good will

towards men with whom

he is pleased.”

The light vanishes, and

the shepherds tell themselves,

“Let us go to Bethlehem.”

 

Photograph by Casey Horner via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

What Does It Mean to be Made in God’s Image? – Ryan McGraw at Ligonier.

 

“That Holy Thing,” poem by George MacDonald – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

The Forgotten Value of Sacrifice – Marty Machowski at New Growth Press.

 

The Feast of St. Stephen – Elizabeth Sudlow at The Imaginative Conservative.

In the worst and the best

After Luke 2:10-14 

In the worst of times,

as in the best of times,

we have hope, always

we have hope. We can

bring to mind the reason:

the love of God is steadfast;

the love of Gid never ceases.

The mercies of God persist;

his mercies never come to an end.

The love of God,

the mercies of God,

are new every morning,

no matter what we’ve done

the night before.

Our sinfulness is leas

than God’s faithfulness.

 

Photograph by Faris Mohammed via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

3 Things You Should Expect if God is Your Father – Michael Kelley at Forward Progress.

 

I Sought the Lord – Anthoy Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Afternoon – poem by Seth Lewis.

 

The Scandal of Empathy – Jen Oshman.

 

Morning Song – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

Born this day

After Matthew 2:10-14

Born this day

a child in the light

a child of the light

a child who is the light

in the city of David,

in Judea, in Samaria,

to the uttermost parts of the earth

and you will see

and you will witness

and you will bear witness

of this child,

the one foretold,

the promise prophesied,

the promise promised,

the promise delivered

the one called wonderful

the one called counselor

the one called the mighty God

the one the prince of peace.

What Love, My God - City Alight

Photograph by Ben White via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Pivot point

After Matthew 2:1-15

History pivoted

in their small town

in the hills, down

the road from one

capital and even

farther from another.

History pivoted here,

though, positioned

between the king

of death and the city

of refuge, with travelers

providing the catalyst

for the pivot to turn,

told to be good reporters

and tell the story, instead

becoming protectors,

moving another way,

refusing to tell the story

so that the story 

might not end but

be told.

Photograph by Buenas Dicas via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Born to destroy

After I John 3:1-8

A strange birth,

a strange calling, this,

a stranger destiny,

born to destroy the work

of evil, the edifice

constructed on lies

and flourishing, growing

a black blossoming,

fruitful in fertile soil

of bent desire, the worship

of self. So he comes

to divide, to separate,

to set aside, to destroy,

to save.

Photograph by Alex Grichenko via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

In the days after

In the days after the world

became new, the heavens

cracked open

In the days after the change

happened, time shifted; reality

was upended in sharpness

and piercing

In the days after nothing

was the same, cows were milked,

ovens lit, meals prepared, the sun

rose in the east, the winds blew

In the days after nothing

was the same, everything was

the same for a time,

in the days after.

In the days after no one

noticed, not one, until

the stones began to sing

Photograph by Ken Kistler via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

A different choir

A different choir:

donkey brays

cattle low

sheep bleat

wood creaks

out in the fields

the choir sings

in holy terror

terrifying songs

terrifying words

here in this quiet

dirty place fit

for animals

a different choir

a different chorus

a baby’s cry

Photograph by Teodoro S. Gruhl via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission

The Baby's Song

The first hands which touch me are the rough, calloused warn hands of the carpenter, hands that first hold me before he gives me to my mother.

The first smells I know are the earthy dust of the road in the carpenter’s cloak, the hay for the animals, the animals with all their smells, and my mother.

The first sights I see are the hands pulling me from the womb, the blurry face of the carpenter and then my mother, the light from the single lamp.

The first tastes upon my tongue are my mother’s breast and then her milk, saltiness then sweetness.

The first sounds I hear are my own cry, my mother’s pain, my father’s tears of joy, the sounds of animals at rest.

The first physical sensations I experience are the touch of cloth wiping away blood, the prickliness of the hay, the hardness of the trough, the coolness of the night air.

The first touch upon my heart is the love of my mother, the love of my father, both loces accompanied by fear and pride, wonder and amazement, and awe.

So it begins.

Photograph by Anna Langova via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Christmas Stories – A Box of Them

A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to a talk by Richard Paul Evans, author of The Christmas Box and many other popular books, including his latest, A Winter Dream. He was speaking at the St. Louis County, only a few miles from our home. (Authors attracting large audiences usually end up at this library for their St. Louis visits).

Evans was charming. He told stories sprinkled with self-deprecating humor. He talked about the previous times he’d been in St. Louis. He talked about the responses to the book he had received over the years.

The Christmas Box, he said, was originally written for his two (then) young daughters. He had printed 20 copies for family and a few friends. Someone loaned it to someone else, it began making the rounds, and eventually a publisher picked it up. The book was a best-seller in the United States and several other countries.

This year marks the book’s 20^th anniversary, and the publisher has printed a special edition. My wife had previously read it but I had not, so I bought a copy of it and A Winter Dream.

It’s a simple, sweet story, largely autobiographical. To save money, a young couple and their 4-year-old daughter respond to an ad and eventually move into a large Victorian house owned by an elderly lady. They get free rent, and she gets cooking, light housekeeping and some yard work. And company. The young man is trying to get a new business established, and spends long hours away from home. But things will happen, and discoveries will be made, and he will learn about the first gift of Christmas.

The book reads easily and quickly; it’s on the short side, even for a novella. It’s like reading a Hallmark Hall of Fame television special, for which I am a total sap, especially the commercials. The book has been a successful seller for two decades, likely the most popular of all recent Christmas books, a genre first widely popularized by Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol in the 1840s.

Christmas books are big sellers at this time of year; just check the tables at the local Barnes & Noble or search online at Amazon. Lots of Christmas books are written and published every year, each author to achieve what Evans has done with The Christmas Box.

What is it about these stories that so appealing?

One reason is obvious: we all like a good story, and a book like The Christmas Box is a good story. Yes, it has an element of sentimentality (“serious” writers and poets hate sentimentality) but that’s okay; we can stand a bit of sentimentality, especially at this time of the year.

A second reason for these books’ popularity is that they’re easy and quick to read. They don’t require an extended engagement or serious commitment. They’re not written to be serious literature. But they’re stories, simple stories, stories that are accessible and moving and easy to understand.

A third reason, and the one I think most important, is that we like recognizable stories about Christmas. The nativity story of Jesus in the Bible is familiar, but it’s not necessarily recognizable, especially in the wealthy society and culture that is the United States, Western Europe, and the countries we generally call “the Western world.” I suspect it’s not as familiar but more recognizable in developing countries in Africa than it is in the U.S.

What I mean by “recognizable” is this: Jesus was born to a lower working-class family in the Middle East. He did not know luxury; he didn’t know what it meant to have indoor plumbing, running water, and a cornucopia of food to eat. For his economic class, transportation was mostly by foot. He didn’t live in a society that knew and practiced basic human freedoms, freedoms we take for granted today. He didn’t go to an expensive private school; to grow up in Nazareth even then was considered a questionable upbringing.

We are familiar with the story of Jesus, but it’s difficult at best for us to recognize it, and identify with it. Stories like The Christmas Box essentially translate the original Christmas story into something we can recognize and connect with.  

One thing I try to do each year at this time is reread the account of the nativity in the Gospel of St. Luke and find one new thing I hadn’t noticed before. It might be a word, a reference, a statement, an observation – just one thing that surprises, because everything about the nativity is a surprise. Or I might select one word or idea or statement (like the role myrrh played in Middle Eastern society) and research it, following where it might lead.

Try it. You might end up writing your own Christmas story.

The Character of Joseph

One of my favorite movies about the birth of Christ is The Nativity Story, released in 2006. One of the reasons is that it has more about the character of Joseph than most nativity movies.

There’s not much we really know about Joseph. He was a carpenter in Nazareth, engaged to marry Mary. After learning she was pregnant, he resolved to divorce her. The text in the Gospel Matthew says he wanted to divorce her quietly and not expose Mary to public disgrace, “because he was a righteous man.”

But then he has a dream, and an angel of the Lord explains what’s happening. The account is not as lengthy as that of the angel and Mary in the Gospel of Luke, but it’s clear that Joseph does exactly what Mary did: he obeys. He “did what the angel of the Lord commanded him to do” and takes Mary into his home as his wife. And when the baby is born, it is Joseph who obeys once again and names the baby Jesus.

He takes the pregnant Mary to Bethlehem for the census, and he was most likely with her when the baby was born and may, as the movie suggests, have helped deliver the baby (there wasn’t anyone else around in the manger). Eight days later, he and Mary bring the baby to the temple “to be consecrated to the Lord,” required for every firstborn male.

While the timing isn’t exactly certain, we know he was with Mary when the Magi visit and present their gifts. And then Joseph has another dream, where the angel of the Lord warns him that Herod is out to kill the child and to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt. After Herod dies, Joseph has a third dream, and an angel tells Joseph to return to Israel.

We can deduce that Joseph taught Jesus to be a carpenter. We know that Jesus had half-brothers, and that Joseph would have been the father (whether you believe Mary was their mother depends upon whether you accept Protestant or Catholic teaching). But we do not know anything else about Joseph – his age, when he died, what he thought about raising Jesus, whether he had doubts like Mary seemed to have at times, or what his personality was like. And nowhere does Jesus mention or refer to Joseph.

We know he was a righteous man. We know he obeyed what he was commanded to do – three times. We know he trained Jesus in his trade, as any father would have done at the time. His job, one that he accepted in rather unusual circumstances, was to protect Mary and the baby, and then to raise the child as his son. He protected his family from both physical harm and the shame that would have attached itself to an unmarried mother and illegitimate child, especially in a small town like Nazareth.

He was an ordinary carpenter who was called to do extraordinary things, and he obeyed.

Over at Faith Barista, Bonnie Gray is asking the question, what character in the Christmas story is speaking to you this year? To see how others answer the question, please visit Faith Barista.

Witness: The Child

The season of darkness and warmth is ending, the darkness wet; the warmth moist. It has been an odd sensation to be swimming while connected to a throbbing, elongated life preserver.

But it has not been a season of silence. I am keen aware of the liquidity, the protective squishiness of living inside my mother. Like the continuous splashing of diving into a deep pool.

I hear my mother’s heartbeat.

It is strong, not only because of her youth. It beats with purpose, with mission, with knowing what it is, and what it can cost, to accept the commands of the Lord.

And it comforting, perhaps I can clearly hear the sounds outside – animals, voices, the hooves of galloping horses, soldiers rudely shouting.

When we rode into Jerusalem, my mother seated on a donkey (they bray a lot), the noise was chaotic and enormous, a symphony of cacophony, the bustle and excitement of a city expecting a king. It is a city that will be disappointed, murderously disappointed, a city that betrays both itself and its destiny.

The walls that have protected this human body I have are now pulsating in imminent collapse. The time is now, an abbreviated, parsed second of heavenly time.

My parents will always be mystified and a little frightened of me. I will have to tell my earthly father to teach me his trade in wood, and he will do that, and do it well. He has already accepted me as a gift, but he will learn than he, too, has much to teach and give to this gift.

And my young mother. Even when she doubts, and she will have doubts, something would be wrong if she did not, even in her doubts she will love me. For three years of my ministry she will watch me with growing alarm because she loves me.

She does not yet know that I am born to die to rise.

And her heart will break, for a time.

Now it begins, with the cry of an infant held by his earthly father as he cuts the cord connecting me to my mother. He has cleansed with knife in the fire.

Even through the mists of infant eyes, I see the joy on their faces.

Related: Witness: The Innkeeper

              Witness: The Shepherd

              Witness: The Man from the East

              Witness: The Angel

              Witness: The Young Couple


Illustration: Baby Jesus by Deborah Woodall via Mark Mallett.

Witness: The Angel

The summons was wordless.

I knew, simply.

I journeyed to complete, with the others, what we had been commanded to do.

I was not to be sent to kings or nobles, nor to merchants or the wealthy or even shopkeepers and innkeepers.

I was sent to the true descendants of David, those who knew and hoped, those who held steadfast like David had. It was no coincidence that those with hearts after God’s own would be found in the hills around the City of David.

As David had been found.

I startled those shepherds and told them not to fear. They sensed, correctly, the one who had sent me.

I spoke but few words, stark in the plainness and simplicity. Not because I spoke to plain and simple men, but because the moment spoke for itself; it needed no elaborate explanation.

I spoke the message of God in the language of men.

Yet even as I spoke, I knew to speak the words is not to live the words, is not be the words.

The others arose behind me, and the worship of God filled their voices, spilling over into the shepherds’ ears and hearts. We sang to those who knew.

Then we were gone, stunning the shepherds with the suddenness of the leaving, as if we had overcome the night and then vanished within it.

It was by divine design that he used his warriors to speak and sing. I am a warrior in the service of my commander.

I and the others surrounded that family, that night and many to follow. No human saw me at the stable, but I, too, fell to my knees and wept in worship.

A little later, I whispered into the ear of the man to flee to Egypt. He recognized my voice from before.

Much later, as measured in shepherd’s time, we were recalled, and legion was set loose, for three days.

I was then sent back.

To roll away the stone.


Related: Witness: The Innkeeper

             Witness: The Shepherd

             Witness: The Man from the East


Painting: Angels announcing Christ's birth to the shepherds by Govert Flinck (1639); Louvre, Paris (public domain).

Witness: The Man from the East

They call me many things.

King, but I rule over nothing, not even my wife.

Magician, but I make no magic.

Wise man, but the more I learn, the less I know.

Astrologer, but the stars know me more than I them.

Prophet, but I only study what the prophets have written; I make no prophecies of my own.

Still, they listen, and they ask. Some fear my answers.

The prophets agree that this was the time, and not only the old Hebrew scrolls left behind in Babylon.

The time, long foretold, had come.

Even the heavens spoke this truth. And we followed the sign of the heavens.

And so I went, to see the king who would rule over hearts.

The king who would rule forever.

The journey was long. Too long. Many times I thought to turn back. But I, or my camel, kept on.

One, then the other, joined me. They too were on the same mission, the same journey, the same search.

To see this king.

We each carried a gift. A gift of wealth, a gift of worship, a gift of homage.

Around our campfires, we would speak in spite of the sand between our teeth. We shared our learning, our knowledge, our understanding. We each had a piece, but even together the pieces did not make a whole.

Wise men, indeed.

Our only wisdom as to follow the sign of the heavens.

When we reached Judea, we were perplexed why this king would be born in a land ruled by an iron fist of Rome and the venality of a Hasmonean king. Even the priests in the temple at Jerusalem were uneasy. They, too, knew the signs, but too loud a whisper could lose you your priestly head.

We slipped away, quietly, at night, right before the gates were closed.

We found him in the place the call Bethlehem, the house of bread. An odd name for the City of David. But even in our countries, bread is life.

We find our king, the king to rule our hearts for all time.

We find him in a hovel for animals.

And yet, when we saw him, we knew. You could not help but know.

We knew.

The prophecies had been fulfilled in a most unexpected way, yes.

But they had been fulfilled.

We joined the others on bended knees. We offered our gifts, which seemed so humble in his presence.

And we worshipped, in the murmur of human prayers and the song of a dove, under the sign of the heavens.


Related: Witness: The Innkeeper

             Witness: The Shepherd


Illustration: Mosaic of the Three Wise Men, Church of St. Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy, 6th century A.D.

Witness: The Shepherd

I am half-asleep. The night is cold. I’ve pulled my cloak closely, moth-eaten thing that it is, and sit as close of the fire as I can without becoming a piece of kindling. The sheep are mostly quiet, perhaps dreaming of their wool becoming tunics or what it’s like to become dinner or, for the best of the best, what it is for the priests in Jerusalem to slit your throat and let the blood run into the stones of the temple court.

Or perhaps sheep don’t dream.

I don’t recall how it started, but I looked up, toward the top of the hill we were camped upon. I thought I was one of the sheep, dreaming, for there was the figure of what seemed a man. But when I think back now, I wonder, how could I see the figure in the dark? For the figure came before the light. It still doesn’t make sense.

And then that light, that glorious light, a radiance that was more than a thousand suns. It was golden light, and it was both protecting and terrifying. From within the light, the figure spoke. You know the words as well as any; the story’s been told more than any I’ve ever heard, and I know because I have told it, too.

Then the voices. I had never heard such voices, neither man nor woman nor child. Voices with the purity of clear water in the stream, washed by the rocks.

Suddenly, darkness again. We shepherds gathered around, and looked at each other, each afraid to say what had been seen.

“The vision,” one said.

“The angels of heaven,” one said.

Speaking it made it real. We knew. Messiah is born. Messiah is born in my lifetime.

“To Bethlehem,” I said.

We did something no shepherd in his right mind would do. My father would have beaten me if he had not been home, asleep in his warm bed.

We left our flocks, still dreaming, and we followed the light of the star.

The City of David was no Jerusalem, nor was it a collection of hovels that people call a village. We walked through the streets, not thinking the flocks behind us but only the light before us.

They were in a stable, a place for the animals. It was a shelter, yes, but only once removed from the open fields. We stopped, and stared. I thought I could come no closer to this child.

The woman looked at me and smiled, motioning me forward. I leaned down. I touched the baby’s little cheek.

I touched the cheek of Messiah.

I fell to my knees. The tears streamed but I had no shame. I can’t tell you if they were tears of joy or relief or awe or fear. Perhaps all of these.

We knelt for what must have been hours. Others came, but we took little notice. Even the three in dusty finery and bearing gifts could not distract our attention.

I don’t recall how we left, only that we did when it was time. Returning to the fields, the night becoming lighter, we found the fires burned down and the sheep still resting. As we knew we would.

I know, now, what it is to be a sheep.

I have seen the shepherd.

I have touched his face.


Photograph: Shepherd Song, courtesy Patricia S. Baker.

Witness: The Innkeeper

Yes, I remember them. And don’t look at me that way. You have no idea what it was like. Do you know how many people I had already had to turn away? I could have filled the inn four times over, that’s how many. The town had been packed for days, you couldn’t walk in the streets without stepping on someone, and people were sleeping anywhere they could find. We were all waiting for the Romans to finally come do the census thing, and we all knew what that was about – taxes.

Everybody came knocking, crowds of people, family after family. It was depressing. They’d put the children in front so I could see the big eyes and tears and it was tough to keep saying no room – no room – no room. At first, you’d try to be helpful, you know, and suggest some places that might accept guests, a few people in town were renting out rooms and beds, even porches but you had to be desperate to do that because it was cold. I had people sleeping under tables in the kitchen, yeah, I know what people said, that I’d make a buck any way I could. But it was awful there were so many people. Old, young, the sick, even some people dying, like the Romans were going to milk that cow, I mean, what was the point?

So we did what we could. And feeding them was no picnic, either, let me tell you. Food prices jumped 25 percent in a week. Too many to feed and not enough food to go around. I got a shipment in from Jerusalem and that helped but it cost me dearly, those Jerusalem merchants are a pack of vultures, that’s what they are.

OK, yes, I remember them. She was in childbirth and in a pretty bad way. He was desperate. He begged me for a place, for anything, it’s his time, he kept saying, over and over again. It’s his time. Please, anything, it’s his time. You’d think he was the one having the baby the way he kept saying it’s his time.

I shut the door in his face. And that dirty peasant started banging on the door, shouting at me. They were both filthy from the dust, they’d been traveling for days. What a sight. My woman finally shouted at me to give them the animal stalls, so I told him if you can stand the smell you can stay there.

He ran. He picked her up from the donkey and he ran. He didn’t even ask me how much, not that I could have charged him anything, I mean, sure it was crowded but to sleep with the animals? I’ve got a heart, you know.

I didn’t think anything more about them, until a few hours later. I was exhausted from feeding and serving all the guests, and they were a rude, obnoxious bunch, too, insulting the food my woman cooked, she worked her fingers to the bone and we get what, insults? I told them they could leave if they didn’t like it, that shut them up, you can take it from me.

So I’m asleep and she starts shaking me, wake up, wake up, she said. Something’s going on in the stalls. My first thought was that dirty peasant had lit a fire, yes, I know it was cold but you don’t light a fire in an animal stall. So I grabbed the bucket and ran outside and sure enough there was a glow and I just knew a fire had started so I ran with the bucket,water sloshing over the side, my wife had filled it before we went to bed so she wouldn’t have to fetch in the cold, and what do I see but a crowd, a crowd, and they’re standing there, watching. I was ready to break some heads.

So I push through the crowd and then I see them. They’re in the glow. I don’t know where the glow came from. Above, that’s all I remember.I stood there, stunned. I couldn’t speak. It was the couple and the baby.

And I don’t know how I knew this but I knew, maybe we all knew, this was something like we had never seen before. It was like my head emptied out. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. And if you ever repeat this I’ll deny it, but I’ll tell you confidentially that I cried. I fell to my knees and I cried. And I wasn’t the only one. You should have seen the shepherds. Well, you could have smelled them too, but you should have seen them. On their knees and crying.

The magicians came later. And Herod’s troops after them. That couple left with the baby right before the soldiers arrived, and then the horror, I still can’t talk about it so don’t even think of asking.

But, yes, I saw them and gave them a place to stay. But this business about him being the Messiah, the one they killed in Jerusalem, I know nothing about that. And don't you say I did.


Photograph: Nativity Scene by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.