The Silent Gift of Christmas

“How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given!” (O Little Town of Bethlehem)

These words woke me up this morning. Images and thoughts flooded in behind:

 - A teenage girl, bewildered at an angelic visit, but raised in a home where prophecies were taught, is willing to do the unexpected. Silently - the Son of God begins His journey on earth as one of us.

 - A young man who receives his own angelic visit, does the unexpected, and marries the girl he knows is carrying a Child who is not his. Silently, the mother of the Son of God isn’t publicly rejected and humiliated in her innocent purity, which, unexpectedly, doesn’t look like innocence and purity.

 - A newly married couple, miles from home, frantically try to find a place to have a baby. They gratefully accept the unexpected, but because they’ve been raised on prophecies - maybe not so unexpected? Silently, a poor, out-of-town couple embark on their journey to be parents to the Son of God.

“So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven.”

This is how God communicates to every single one of His willing children that His Son... IS... His Son. If the Creator and King of heaven and earth had come in a spectacular, more expected way - the way He will return - how could any of us have had the freedom to choose Him for ourselves? Our Father is so very polite; in bringing His Son into the world so silently, and in such an unexpected way, each of us has the blessing of figuring out who He is on our own, and test His fruit for ourselves.

“No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,

Where meek souls will receive Him, still, the dear Christ enters in.”

That first coming was so silent and unexpected - except for those who knew the prophecies. It was to be a pattern for the entire life of the Son of the Everlasting Father. The King lived a quiet life in unexpected anonymity. Even people who watched Him grow up, attended synagogue with Him, were His neighbors - had to decide for themselves who He really was.

He died in seeming shame in His own community, and unexpectedly, in an occupied country that even its occupiers loathed. The willing death of the Son of God provided rescue for the entire human family.

Now, two thousand years later, the noisy world mocks the silent, unexpected message that’s the only solution to the noisy world’s problems: love. Forgive. See. Give. Reach. Try again. Start over. Give each other room to do the same. Choose light. Reject darkness. Be good - for goodness’ sake. How on earth can such quiet, unexpected choices save the world?

May you have a blessed, merry Christmas. May you have some silent, unexpected time in the next two days to ponder the silent, unexpected entrance of the Son of God into this sin sick world - and His anything BUT silent and unexpected return in the coming years - when the Babe of Bethlehem will rule and reign with justice, equity, mercy, and grace. O come - let us adore Him.

Thanks to Kirt Harmon for the beautiful art. This painting of the nativity hangs in my living room all year. (https://harmonart54.blogspot.com/)