“Suddenly there was with the angel,
a multitude of the heavenly host praising God…”
Luke 2:13
Dear Father,
What was it like when your Son drew in that first gulp of air into newborn lungs? Did all of heaven explode with applause and songs? The Word of heaven had been silent for nine months. No voice or sound from the Lord as He lay hidden within the body of a woman. I wonder what His last words were before He laid aside all glory and splendor and humbled Himself into a human embryo. I can imagine the ears of every angel longing to hear Him. How they must have strained to catch the Voice they had always known since their creation. Did they unbeknownst to Mary, press their ears to her ever growing middle hoping to hear a heartbeat or feel a kick? But the fullness of time came and on the floor of a stall, amidst the nastiness of animal waste, came the sound they had waited and waited and waited to hear: a tiny, guttural cry from a seven or so pound baby. Yes, there He was, the Word made flesh! No wonder there burst across the night sky a heavenly host singing and praising God. The Voice that had been silenced had opened His mouth again. O Father did your heart quiver with delight when you heard your baby boy cry? And Father did your heart just about rip into pieces when you looked ahead 33 years and saw that same beloved face crying from a cross? Such a bittersweet scene. Every year at Christmas the redemption story becomes a little clearer to me. I gather the richness of it just a tad more. This was not a watercolor picture, but the real deal of a painful birth in horrible conditions to a couple who must have had thoughts that it was all going wrong when in your way it was all going right. Give me a fresh vision of that moment – the hardness of it, the loneliness of it, the wonder of it – that night so long ago when a Savior was born. Make it real to us again – bring it home to my heart.
Love,
Penny
