This birth would not be easy, either for the mother or the Child. For every royal privilege for this Son ended at conception.
A scream from Mary knifes through the calm of that silent night. Joseph returns breathless, water sloshing from the wooden bucket. The top of the baby’s head has already pushed its way into the world. Sweat pours from Mary’s contorted face as Joseph, the most unlikely midwife in all Judea , rushes to her side.
The involuntary contractions are not enough, and Mary has to push with all her strength, almost as if God were refusing to come into the world without her help.
Joseph places a garment beneath her, and with a final push and a long sigh her labor is over.
The Messiah has arrived.
Elongated head from the constricting journey through the birth canal. Light skin, as the pigment would take days or even weeks to surface. Mucus in his ears and nostrils. Wet and slippery from the amniotic fluid. The son of the Most High God umbilically tied to a lowly Jewish girl.
The baby chokes and coughs. Joseph instinctively turns him over and clears his troat.
Then he cries.
Mary bares her breast and reaches for the shivering baby. She lays him on her chest, and his helpless cries subside. His tiny head bobs around on the unfamiliar terrain. This will be the first thing the infant-king learns. Mary can feel his racing heartbeat as he gropes to nurse.
Deity nursing from a young maiden’s breast. Could anything be more puzzling- or more profound?
Joseph sits exhausted, silent, full of wonder.
The baby finishes and sighs, the divine Word reduced to a few unintelligible sounds. Then, for the first time, his eyes fix on his mother’s. Deity straining to focus. The Light of the World, squinting.
Tears pool in her eyes. She touches his tiny hand. And hands that once sculpted the mountain ranges cling to her finger.
She looks up at Joseph, and through a watery veil, their souls touch. He crowds closer, cheek to cheek with his betrothed. Together they stare in awe at the baby Jesus, whose heavy eyelids begin to close. It has been a long journey. The King is tired.
And so, with barely a ripple of notice, God stepped into the warm lake of humanity. Without protocol and without pretension. Where you would have expected angels, there were only flies. Where you would have expected heads of state, there were only donkeys, a few haltered cows, a nervous ball of sheep, a tethered camel, and a furtive scurry of barn mice.
Except for Joseph, there was no one to share Mary’s pain, or her joy. Yes, there were angels announcing the Savior’s arrival- but only to a band of blue-collar shepherds. And yes, a magnificent star shone in the sky to mark his birthplace- but only three foreigners bothered to look up and follow it.
Thus, in the little town of Bethlehem… that one silent night… the royal birth of God’s Son tiptoed quietly by… as the world slept.
-From Intimate Moments with the Savior, by Ken Gire
Category Archives: Bible - Page 2
An intimate moment with mary and joseph
Kicked out: home, pt II.
When a man walks into a room, he brings his whole life with him. He has a million reasons for being anywhere; just ask him. If you listen, he’ll tell you how he got there–how he forgot where he was going and then he woke up. If you listen, he’ll tell you about the time, he thought he was an angel and dreamt of being perfect. And Then he’ll smile with wisdom, content that he realized the world isn’t perfect. We’re flawed because we want so much more. We’re ruined because we get these things and wish for what we had. –Donald Draper, Madmen
If you asked me to sum up the human experience, I don’t think I could say more with many words than I will say with just one: Longing. There’s a certain shiftiness those things for which we hope and desire–they either evade us or aren’t quite what we thought they would be when we get them. In the end, they aren’t enough. We previously discussed the idea of Longing in terms of a desire to go Home. I’d like to pick the topic back up today using the idea of Shalom.
Shalom is a Hebrew word meaning: a state of peace, completeness and welfare–fully restored and whole. It’s a state of being, not a place. In many ways, it’s the opposite of Longing. A man cannot be at peace and still ache–cannot be whole and still empty. I think Shalom may be the thing for which we seek–it’s the Home we have never known, and yet we somehow know of it. Our longings point us there: both the incompleteness of our joy and the pain of our sorrow.
Ever notice how even the very best things in this world somehow fail to keep their promises? C.S. Lewis put it this way:
Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us.
We are left wanting more or other, but left still wanting–still longing…
Get out your red pen; “exclusivism” revised
…for the new Redeemer blog
Redeemer Presbyterian is starting a new blog for Seekers, or those who are considering the claims of Christianity (and other world religions). They have offered me an opportunity to do some writing. I wrongly supposed I could simply take content from inklingz and allow them to post it on the new blog, but they’ve asked me to trim (that is, massively edit) my work. Here’s an edit below of Exclusivism that welcomes all. I’m curious to hear if you prefer the shorter version to the original post. Get out your red pens and have at it.
An exclusive invitation for all, revised and revisited
Christianity is unique among world religions because of the unique claims of Jesus Christ. No other religious leader (of a major religion) claimed to be God or promised to destroy death; and followers of no other religion claim its leader’s resurrection. Therefore, I contend that Christianity is either “better” or much worse than all other faiths. I use the word “better” simply because Christianity is based on truth claims that supersede all other truth claims. That is, either Jesus was God and was resurrected from the dead; or not. If not, then Christianity is a farce based on lies; I accept that. But what if?
I recognize the intellectual problem presented by exclusive truth claims particularly for thoughtful modern people (that is, True Truth or truth that is universally true for all all people at all times–The Lens through which all other truth claims must be viewed). The general form of the argument against True truth is often illustrated with a story about blind men trying to understand the full nature of an elephant. One feels its trunk and believes the elephant is snakelike. Another man feels a leg and thinks the elephant much like a tree. A third man feels the tusks and has quite a different interpretation. Each man understands a part of the elephant, but none of them has the full picture. Such is life, the argument suggests. All any of us can hope to offer is the unique understanding we derive from our experiences, but none of us can understand the full elephant, as it were. That is to say, a person’s truth claim will reflect (only) his limited understanding, but it cannot be the complete picture–it cannot be True Truth.
