Sunday December 25th: Always to Shine

The Nativity of the Lord

“An angel of the Lord stood over them and the glory of the Lord shone round them.”

Luke 2:1-14

Time and tide wait for no man. Caesar’s decree is to be followed forthwith.  Joseph and Mary hasten from their secure Nazareth, to endure the ninety-mile gruelling journey along the flatlands of the Jordan River to Joseph’s ancestral home. He draws us away by decree or accident from the sophisticated, prepared, overused places to search for humble ordinary abode, where you would rather not go; there, to discover the hiding place of God.

If the world is an orchestra, then the stable at Bethlehem has a fiddler on the roof, conducting the heavenly host singing Glory to God in the highest. Always to shine; To shine everywhere; to the depths of the last days.

We sit in our conductor’s chair with a glass of sorrel in han’, knowing full-well that we are celebrating the turning point of history with the ‘sweet tang’ of certainty that the kingdom of God has come in our midst.

No turning back from the Jordan. Get up and go on your adventure, by decree, by accident or by trickery, to discover the humble hiding place of God.