Merry Christmas

A Merry Christmas to you all.

Unto us a child is born. Unto us a Son is given. Unto us comes this gift, though we knew him not and gave him little welcome.

Yet he came, leaving the majesty and unspeakable glory of his Father’s house, not clinging to the riches of unveiled Deity. He came, a light into the very thick darkness of this world, a darkness that did and does not comprehend, and that did all it could to kill the light.

He came, poor and lowly with a feed trough for his first bed, surrounded by a few of those that the world deemed inconsequential; the outcasts, the poor, the nobodies. It was these who would flock to him for healing, who would joyfully eat the multiplied fish and loaves from his hand, who would without decorum cry for rescue with deformed tongues, blind eyes and stunted limbs, and be made whole, leaping and dancing and praising God. It was these who would scandalize the well-integrated and well-heeled of their day with jars of alabaster and unabashed tears of repentence, kneeling at his feet.

May we join them this day and every day, whispering and cooing in wonder as we kneel by the manger, silent and joyous and awed as we listen to him teach, humble under his healing hand that releases us strong-limbed, clear-eyed, and clean in a broken world. May we stand beside his cross, with eyes that have bled out all the tears in their store and with ears that hear the derision and mockery of the established powers, standing with him in his lonely struggle against the heaped sins of the millenia, unashamed of our kinship with this one that the darkness rages against. And may we run with joy from the empty tomb, our hearts set aflame by the news that he is alive!

For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given. Merry Christmas!

[Hat tip for the image to iMonk]

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