Wednesday, December 26, 2007

On the first day of Christmas...: humble beginnings


Pausing a moment to catch my breath and key out a few paragraphs late yesterday, I wrote that "over the coming days I want to look at here, in depth, some of the key pivot-points of our pastor’s Christmas-Eve homily yesterday on Jesus' birth". These points are: Peace, Humility, Simplicity, and Poverty. Since you are probably at least as busy (still) today as I am, could I at least enjoin on my reader(s) to still take a little time tonight, and tomorrow, and the days following, and reflect a few minutes on these things?
Please also do not be in a hurry to take down your Christmas décor. Keep the tree up, and lit; leave your cards out on display, keep your opened gifts under the tree: today is just the First Day of Christmas; the celebration has only begun.
Our heavenly king, lord, rescuer of humanity, and greatest intercessor with our Father… was born in the stink and squalor of an animal pen, laid down and bundled up in, essentially, a food-trough. You want humble? You got it. He through whom the grandest sweep of galaxies and rainbows, the stunning beauty both of canyon and cantata, were created… entered our world and our lives and our history in circumstances about as far from royal and righteous as one could imagine.
He never lost sight of His most humble of origins. Why have we?

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