Christmas Day

What did the angels say 
when you stripped away Your glory?
Did they turn away in shame?
Did they recognize You? 
Did some stare in horror 
as God became like me?
It was not enough though, was it,
for you to become like me.
You who lived before eternity
and walked the heavens
and held the constellations in Your hand 
were reduced to a clump of cells 
tucked into the womb of a child.
For me.
And that, dearest Lord, I do not understand.
Marvelous are Thy works.

The baby Jesus was born sometime in the night on a hillside outside of Bethlehem, the same hillsides that provided the choicest grazing in all Israel. It was on those hillsides that the lambs were raised that would be used in the Temple sacrifices. Most likely, the “stable’ in which Jesus was born was part of a series of caves dug from the hillside that kept the sheep and other livestock in the small town.

The lamb of God, born in the very pens that kept the sheep used for the Temple sacrifices. How like God to do such a thing. There is no mention of anyone who ventured out to help or assist. Surely if there had been, Mary would have noted their names or descriptions to the Gospel writers.

But no one came. And in majestic irony, God appointed the heavenly birth choir to sing to a group of shepherds keeping their flocks at night. Surely they, of all people would recognize the spotless Lamb of God.

I wonder what Mary and Joseph thought when the scraggly, unkempt shepherds showed up to marvel at the child! Were they to be evicted now from the stable? Did Joseph stand up to defend his family against the intruders? Did he understand their rough dialect as they described the scene of angels who had appeared to them?

I wonder what it must have been like.

Over the course of the next several days, Joseph registered his little family with the Roman tax collectors. He had to find decent lodging, or maybe just make the stable more tolerable until he found work. They would stay in Bethlehem for a year or so until an angel would give Joseph instructions to flee from Herod’s sword.

It would be years before they would see their beloved Galilee again. Those years were spent by Joseph and Mary faithfully protecting the baby Jesus from the serpent.

Jesus knew the same hardships of any other child who is homeless, poor, and an outcast of society. He was the son of an unmarried teenage girl and born into an ethnic group that was only several generations away from complete slavery. He was like us. en again, He was not like us at all, because He chose to identify with the worst our world could offer. He chose to be the least of men so that no man would have reason to reject Him.

And that is why we worship Him this day.

Merry Christmas, Jesus.