Christmas Meanings

Last night we went to Bethlehem in Burnet to hear and see anew the din and wonder that surrounded the Savior’s birth.

We stopped at the reckoning table for taxes, where we reported the many blessings that the Lord has given us. We were asked for payment, as if the punishment should be equal to our blessings, and when we said that we had no money, the tax collector angrily shouted at us and told us to leave before the soldiers could be called to arrest us. Another resident helpfully suggested that although our taxes were high, we might be able to raise funds by selling a child or two. Despite the references throughout the New Testament to abusive taxes, I had never before thought of Joseph, a young provider, likely stripped of his means just prior to his young wife’s great need. Nor had I thought of the anxiety of poverty coloring this young couple’s child-bearing.

I listened to two women arguing “Born in a stable? Doesn’t sound like the kind of place the Messiah would come to me: more like a palace far from here!” The Christmas story can become so route that its mystery is lost. It was bizarre that the God chose this tiny town, a poor neighbor to the sacred Capital, enslaved and abused by invaders, and a miserable stable in that destitute town to host the Heavenly King. Behold the condescension of God! The instinct that the fitting place for Christ is far away is wrong: He is happy to walk into the meanest of circumstances, for the Lord looketh on the heart, and inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me.