Monday, December 21, 2015

Luke 2:5-7

He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Wrapped in mercy

I am not sure there is anything more beautiful to me than a mother cradling an infant. Maybe it is because part of me longs to be loved like that, and another part wants to be able to love … just like that.

Mary cradles Jesus and wraps him bands of cloth. Nothing unusual. I can sit in the mall and watch young mothers lift their babies from strollers, re-wrap blankets around them and hold a bottle to their lips.

Watching them, I know I am seeing much more than a mother doing the most natural thing in the world. I feel hopeful because I am seeing the world as it should be, but most often is not.

There may have been no place for Mary and her baby in the inn, but there is a place for them in my heart. I want the whole world to be a place where the each of our lives is held tenderly in arms that desire us to be at peace.

This is why Mary moves me. She brings forth the child who is God with us and then holds and loves him the way God loves and holds each of us.

The child in her arms is exactly that holding. Jesus is the God-man. In him, God receives our human nature, our joy and weakness and all we are, holding it all as a mother cradles her child. All we are is wrapped in mercy.

Jesus wraps our humanity in the warmth of God just as Mary wraps her child. It’s beautiful and tender, humanizing and hopeful. Is it any wonder that I love her more with each passing year? 

Pr. David L. Miller