I love the Christmas story. It is a story about two ordinary people who are caught up in a most extraordinary, cosmic event that will change the world forever.
A young girl, who has never been intimate with a man who chooses to be intimate with God. "Let it be so," she told the angel, Gabriel.
A man, who discovers that his fiancé is pregnant and chooses (against all custom) to continue to love her and to love the child that she will bear.
It is a story about a hard journey to a distant city where relatives reside; of registering for the census; of being counted as taxpayers for the Roman tax.
It is a story about God's love for humanity entering the world in the form of a human child; a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and held close in his mothers arms; a baby born in a manger, the long awaited Messiah, surrounded by farm animals.
It is a story about God first revealing the incarnation through angels joyfully singing to shepherds; lowly keepers of sheep; servants of the fields, who leave their flocks and enter the manger to behold the godchild.
It is a story of prophecies foretold, divine promises kept; it is a story of faith and of acting on that faith; it is a story of God's intervention in the course of human events.
Whenever I think that this world is spiraling out of control, that there is no hope left, I remember the Christmas story, when love and hope were born in an ordinary way, in an ordinary place, to ordinary people. And I have comfort. And I have joy.
