These accounts have me thinking about how I became involved in church. I did not have a miraculous vision or hitting bottom experience. I became involved when I realized God’s love and grace had already been given to me. The hard part was believing that for myself.
But the truth is that no human power, no human person, no human polity can fully live up to God’s Kingdom. We are all imperfect, always. And remembering that is part of King’s legacy, too. God’s sovereignty is the one that matters.
You are good.
You are enough.
You are loved.
You are a child of God.
The Magi know. Somehow, these scholars from afar know what is to come. The stars have told them not just who is born, but why. What his life will mean. And how it will end.
And in the most mom that Mary has ever been, she waltzes right up to the gaggle of religious scholars on the floor and demands to know what, exactly, her son thinks he’s doing.
“Where have you been? We have been worried sick!”
God comes despite the congestion on the highways. God comes in the midst of packed hotels and overflowing family rooms. When there’s no time to talk because the food isn’t done and the presents aren’t quite wrapped. When the flights get cancelled for the snow and you’re trapped in your driveway for entirely too long.
Zephaniah 3:14–20 & Luke 1:46–55
It’s a miracle.
It’s not just that a God would be born in the flesh, to a human woman unmarried—but that anyone with that kind of power could be different.
When Hagar cries out in the wilderness, God answers with a covenant.
When the Hebrews cry out in slavery in Egypt, God answers with freedom.
When the exiles cried out in Babylon, God answered with restoration.
And when these people cry out for peace, God answers with a promise.
