Merry Christmas Dear Reader,
I have much pondered the family of Jesus. As I celebrate the sixth day of Christmas my
family is traveling back from being away.
I love my Sons so dearly and every time I think about Joseph and Mary I
ponder what it must be like to know that your Son is the one on whom all the
hope of humankind rests. I realize that
some of you will shake your head at my quaint theology but it is my theology.
Still to have traveled so far in such dangerous times when
you are supposed to be birthing the Son of God seems so harsh. At the heart of angelic announcements and
cosmic portents is still the need to believe.
One must act in faith or the burden seems too great to carry. How often did this couple need to reassure each
other that what they believed was real and happening to them?
In my mind I picture the three traveling in the wide world
and the lack of understanding that world has.
It drives me to remember them daily.
I have a small pewter nativity that remains at my writing desk all year
round. I do not love Christmas because
of the gifts and trappings. I do enjoy
those things. My heart, however, finds
compassion and hope in the faithfulness of this small family.
A carpenter and his betrothed, both descendants of David carried
the promise in their hearts and then in their arms. They were the ones who live the pinch in the
hour glass. They were the ones who
risked everything from family rejection to political assassination to bring us
the Son. These were to people who
accepted by faith that this baby had a destiny that all hoped for and feared.
I agonize when my children feel hurt or frustrated. I know that I love them with a fierce and
terrible love. I cannot begin to imagine
how difficult it must have been for Joseph and Mary to know that their Son
would face the ultimate pain of paying the price for the sins of us all. I do not think I could have carried the
burden and remained faithful to it. On
this sixth day of Christmas my thoughts are for this small family that is about
to venture onto the world stage and the gratitude I have for their faith and
obedience.
A Pauper’s Hymn – Aramis and
Avalon
Trav'ling hard before
a Sabbath sunset,
Cold the woman great
with child.
Lonely taxed from
Naz’reth wand' ring,
O’re Judea’s barren
wild.
Homeless in a stable
came the birth that night.
What could this weary
woman bring?
Nothing less on earth
than Heaven's Best;
A Savior, Redeemer,
King
Men of the East with
wisdom following
The star that heralds
heaven's own
Christ the Savior come
to ransom
Those who would choose
Him to disown
Warned of the madness
of a puppet king,
The child is safe in
Egypt as he grows,
But in David's City
the children die.
Rachel weeps for those
she'll never know.
The decades pass,
The boy a man,
Condemned by hope and
a lie,
Hanging cold upon a
wind-swept hill,
Suspended between the
worlds to die.
How long will you wait
to embrace His gift?
Where else will you
find harbor for your soul?
Than in the
out-stretched arms of the Christmas babe,
Who ransomed your
eternal soul.
Wishing you joy in the journey,
Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer
who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home
owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure
store."
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