Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
(Matthew 1.18 NRSV)
It was in a stable that Jesus was born. What a strange place for the nativity of the King of Kings. What plain and shabby surroundings for the birth of the Messiah. I was reading sometime back about a South Africa diamond miner who found one of the world's largest diamonds. It was the size of a small lemon. The miner needed to get the diamond safely to the company's office in London, so he sent it in a small steel box and hired four men to carry it. Even when it was in the ship's safe en route, it was guarded day and night by at least two armed men. But when the package arrived at the company's office in London and was carefully opened, it contained no diamond. Rather it contained a lump of black coal. Three days later, the diamond arrived by ordinary parcel post in a plain package. The owner had assumed correctly that most people would not pay attention to an ordinary cardboard box.

Something like that took place that first Christmas. Who would think to look in a stable for the incarnate God? Only a few starstruck shepherds and some travel weary astrologers took note of what was happening in the tiny town of Bethlehem that night. Why should the world take note? As far as we know, no one else heard the angels, no one else saw the star. The rest of the world saw only a plain, cardboard box. They could not know that box contained the advent of love into this strifetorn world.

Joseph knew. An angel had appeared to him in a dream: "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

Mary knew, too. In her amazement and adoration she sang, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded the lowly estate of his handmaiden...." (Luke 1: 4648b) No wonder that the blessed virgin has captured the imagination of so many of the world's people.

Will Jesus capture your imagination?

Dear God, may my heart and mind always be focused on you. Amen.

Ron Newhouse

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