for Wise Men to ignore.
Singing angels swept into
sleepy shepherds' night shift.
Mary broke into labor,
frantic for a place--
any place--
to give birth.
The course of history altered.
Lives abruptly transformed.
Earth touched by a miracle
in the blink of an eye.
Sometimes the events
of that Bethlehem night
sound sudden and dramatic--
the strange star,
an ill-timed delivery,
unsuspecting shepherds.
But Mary had been feeling the strains of pregnancy for several months. The Wise Men's journey was most likely not a quick overnight getaway. Prophets anticipated Emmanuel's arrival hundreds of years before his birth. Generation after generation of ordinary people, struggling under the pressures of life, longed for a Messiah.
The earthly arrival of Jesus was not a desperate, last-minute afterthought. During what must have appeared like endless silence, God surely had been at work, thoughtfully and deliberately orchestrating the details.
I wonder how he is at work in my life.
When circumstances remain stagnant or grow more difficult, when parts of my life seem to be of complete disinterest to him, when angels fail to sing into my darkness and no star points me in the right direction--
Is he still thoughtfully orchestrating the details? Will I someday have that Bethlehem moment when I realize he has been at work all along?
I want to believe so.
And what about the world and mankind? When I hear of so much human suffering and tragedy that something inside me groans and pleads, "God, don't you want to burst into this mess?! Haven't you had enough? How can you stand it? Don't you desire to rescue your broken children? Sometimes I wonder if you are planning any kind of resolution at all!"
Is he still thoughtfully orchestrating the details? Will we someday have that Bethlehem moment when we realize he has been at work all along?
I want to believe so.
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