Monday, December 22, 2008

Today’s text

Luke 2:1-7

Now it happened that at this time Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be made of the whole inhabited world. This census -- the first -- took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria, and everyone went to be registered, each to his own town. So Joseph set out from the town of Nazareth in Galilee for Judaea, to David's town called Bethlehem, since he was of David's House and line, in order to be registered together with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child Now it happened that, while they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to a son, her first-born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the living-space.

Reflection

Come, Lord Jesus.

There is nothing special here, nothing that says something remarkable is happening: a woman, a man, the birth of one more poor child in a world that has always had too many of them.

The travelers don’t seem to be wanted in the town Joseph’s family calls home. Nor are there any of that family still around. If Joseph had people in Bethlehem, why didn’t he go to them when his little family needed a place to stay?

But maybe they didn’t want anything to do with him and his pregnant girl friend. That happens in families. Sad, but all too true.

There is no one at the door to welcome them for the holidays. They are alone and unwanted with nary a caring soul in sight, which is a close description of our deepest fears.

But in the midst of those fears you are born, dear Christ, the gift of God to the fearful aloneness of every human soul.

You come to us not because of our sin and ugliness, but from the desire of your heart to hold our emptiness to your breast until your love flows into the poverty and need of our little lives, banishing our aloneness and convincing our doubting hearts that you want us, that you love us, that you will fill us with that beauty that is east of the sun and west of the moon that shines now in your infant eyes.

You come into the lonely places with the light of forever in your eyes.

Come now to us, Lord Jesus. Illumine our aloneness with your presence.

Pr. David L. Miller