What we see

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all. (Titus 2:11)

I’ve always wanted to celebrate Christmas in a barn amid the mingled scent of Holsteins, manure and hay fragrant with red clover.

I see it. A half dozen cows, ready to be milked, shift their weight in the worn wooden stanchions. A mouse rustles among bales in the mow. A fly-specked light bulb casts a dusty glow, as in the barn I remember from my earliest days. 

In the back, beyond the cows, sits a manger on the old board floor, beside a couple, exhausted, as an infant lies in the straw.

This is what we see when the glory of God takes on mortal flesh. The Loving Mystery, who made the stars, lies there for our adoration. Christ appears, a helpless infant, humbly wrapped by peasant parents in a place far from the halls of power and influence. For those places have no room for him.

But here, in the tender simplicity of a sleeping infant, we meet the Love who hungers to commune, heart-to heart, with us, and transform us into Love’s own image.

David L. Miller