I’ve had so much to do this week. I’ve shopped for our Christmas families. I had a board meeting. I’ve bought things needed for the Christmas Party tonight at church, prepped a turkey. I was out every night except Wednesday when I stayed in and worked on my message for tomorrow – “Wonder of Wonders!”
I began the week tired from last weekend. The first part of the week I was still tired and a kind of mumbling, murmuring grumpiness set in. Then Wednesday evening as I prepped for the message, something different happened in my spirit. Instead of thinking about all the things I had to do, I began to be captured by the “true wonder” of Christmas.
It wasn’t the heavenly choir or the brilliant light or the worshipping shepherds, nor was it the star or the caravan of Magi from the east that brought the wonder. It was a carpenter, his teenage bride, a dirty place for animals and the birthing of a helpless baby in its midst. The Prince of Peace, the Glorious Son of God, born to the poorest of the poor.
That is how Christianity began. There were no grand cathedrals, no rich robes, no golden bells or incense. There was dirty, fetid straw, swaddling cloths that Mary would have brought with her. There was the bleating of animals and the stench of urine and feces.
Jesus came to the poor and the powerless. He still comes to the poor and the powerless. “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” he said to the crowd. [Matt 5:3]
There could not have been two more poor in spirit than His adopted father and birth mother, Joseph and Mary. There could not be anyone more poor in spirit than He, Himself, who gave up everything to take on our infirmities and limitations.
“Wonder of wonders.”
