Once upon a time there were two babies. Their mothers lived on the same dirty street in the same stinking town in the same evil country in the same cold and unconcerned world. The babies were born squalling and filthy, and their mothers, exhausted by the painful birth and half-starved by their miserable lives, could do nothing to clean them up or give them comfort. Each mother nursed her baby with what little weak milk she had and then sank into depressed thought, wondering what to do with this child she could never support. 

The first mother thought of a man she had heard of, a rich man who was known for being kind to the poor. She knew that unlike other rich people, he lived in the same stinking city and that his house was not far away. As her hungry baby began to cry again, she made up her mind. She dragged herself off of her bed, wrapped the baby in the only rag she had, and stumbled through the dirty streets until she found herself on the doorstep of the rich man. With only the faintest sort of hope, she rang the doorbell, and the moment the servant opened the door, she fainted into his arms. The servant, who had been with his master a long time and knew what his master would want, carried the woman and her child into the house. 

The second mother knew nothing of this rich man, other than the vaguest rumors which she dismissed as lies as all rumors were. She knew of no way to care for her child and no one who would help in any way. She was completely alone in the world and, though she wanted her child to live and be happy, she knew that was an impossible wish. Happiness was out of the question. She would have to settle for life. So she dragged herself off of her bed and wrapped her baby in the only rag she had and stumbled out onto the street to beg for scraps from passers by. She received more kicks than coins that day, but for the sake of her child she didn’t stop until she had enough to feed them both, half-rotten though the food would have to be.

__________

Once upon a time there were two children. Both were five years old and tall for their age. Both lived in a stinking town in an evil country in a cold and unconcerned world. But their lives could not have been more different.

The first child lived with his mother in the house of a very rich man. His mother served this man, working in his kitchens, well-fed and well-dressed and happy. The child, too, was well-provided for and that was not where it stopped. The rich man had actually adopted the boy as his own, given him his name and a good education and access to his fortune. The child knew that not only were all his needs met, but that they always would be. Because of the books and music and intelligent conversation that were always around him, his mind had already begun to expand. He was beginning to read words and write his name and to draw pictures of the world around him. He didn’t see his adopted father very much, for he spent most of his time with his mother, but when he did see the man, they laughed and had long talks, and sometimes there were presents, and the child thought his father was the best thing in the whole universe.

The second child lived with his mother in a shack built up under an old bridge. He shivered at night, but in the day he kept warm through constant motion. He ran errands for his mother and he climbed all over the bridge and he fidgeted while his mother made him sit next to her as she begged on the street corner. Most days it felt like he could never move enough.  His mother smacked him to keep him still, and the men who passed by would kick him when he got in their way, but he couldn’t help himself. Something in him needed to be in motion.  When it was time to go to bed at night, he would toss and turn, trying to pretend he wasn’t hungry, trying to pretend he wasn’t cold. It didn’t work. Only when his body was exhausted did he finally fall asleep to dream restless dreams.

____________

Once upon a time there were two teens. They both had grown gangly and awkward. They both lived in the same evil country in the same cold and unconcerned world. They both lost their mothers in the same year to the same disease that swept through their city. But that was where the similarities ended.

The first teen lived safe and secure in the home of the rich man who had adopted him as his son. He mourned his mother and felt an ache in his heart that he would never see her again, but the whole household came around him to give him comfort. They shared stories of his mother’s life and helped him remember her beautiful smile. They reminded him to eat and to sleep and made sure that he had clean clothes just as his mother would have done for him. His adopted father himself came and sat for long hours with the teen, telling him stories of his own losses, helping him feel that he was not alone, that there was hope for his future. His father encouraged him to continue in his studies, and the teen did.  Concentrating on his work helped him deal with his pain, and he learned and grew and the pain did not disappear but it stopped being his whole world and became mixed with the joy of his happy memories.

The second teen lived on the dirty streets, and when his mother died he was completely alone. Long ago, concerned citizens had evicted them from the shack under the bridge in the name of cleaning up the city, and the boy had never realized how hard his mother worked to find them a place to sleep every night. Without her, his whole world became a struggle to find some small amount of food to eat and some small amount of safety to rest at night. Most night’s he didn’t succeed in this. He was frequently beaten by other, stronger men who wanted to sleep in the spot he had chosen. He was occasionally arrested by other, more respectable men who wanted no one to sleep in the public areas of the town. He grew to fear everyone he saw and to resent the need to be afraid. His endless drive to be in motion became his salvation. He learned that he could run, and he could run faster and farther than those who wanted to hurt him. But he couldn’t help thinking that life shouldn’t have to be this way. Every time he ran, his anger built.

____________

Once upon a time there were two young men. They both had reached the age where they were expected to be men and they both secretly felt like boys in their hearts. They both lived in the same cold and unconcerned world, but that had a radically different effect on them.

The first young man saw the gray apathy of his world and determined to light a fire and burn the cold away. He had all the money and power of his adopted father, and he waited only to finish his college education before going out into the cold world to make it a different place.

The second young man saw the unfeeling hardness of his world and hated everyone who was a part of it. He despised the rich for being selfish and the poor for being ignorant. He despised those in authority for being bullies and those who broke the law for being thugs. He despised himself for being weak and worthless street trash. He saw nothing that gave him hope that anything would ever change. He stole what he needed to eat and spent the rest of his time considering ways to end his miserable existence.

____________

Once upon a time there was a thief.  He lived on the streets and he knew an easy mark when he saw one. And one day, he saw the perfect man, and old man walking the streets with his son. They were both dressed in expensive clothes and walked with a quiet confidence that told him they had never known pain. He hated them. When the two men passed him, the older man turned and looked right in his eyes, but the younger man never glanced his way. He was too busy looking ahead. The second young man slipped his hand into the pocket of the first young man and lifted out his wallet, as much for spite as for hunger. The older man saw. He stopped, and his son stopped with him. The son was ready to call for the police, to have the thief dragged away, but the father said no. 

Instead, he took the thief home. He gave him food to eat. He gave him clean clothes to wear. He introduced him to the household and told him to make himself at home. The thief was so bewildered by this behavior that his did what the old man said. He ate the food and put on the clothes. He thanked the women who brought it to him and offered to help the men who took away his old things. He didn’t even mean to. He meant to keep hating the rich man and all who lived in his house, but he found it impossible. No one had ever cared about him other than his mother, and even she had only done it out of duty. He found that the responded to kindness in spite of himself. 

After only a week, the rich man came to the thief and made him an offer. He would adopt the thief as his son and pay for his education. He would give him an inheritance and a life of security. The thief only had to say yes. Still unable to believe that any of this was happening, the thief agreed.  The adoption was carried out at once, and the thief was introduced to his new brother who would show him around the university where he was to get the education that had formerly seemed impossible.

____________

Once upon a time there were two brothers. Both shared the same penniless birth and the same shameful heritage. Both had been taken in by the same wealthy man, and both now had everything they could ever need.  There was only one difference between them. One had been adopted as a baby and one as a young man. 

The first brother found it hard to get used to his new brother. The second brother was rough and uneducated. He hadn’t read any of the books that the first brother loved and it was often hard to know what to talk about. Plus, the new brother was moody. The smaller things would throw him into a rage or sink him into a depression. The first brother tried not to feel resentful toward his father for burdening him with this brother he had to take care of.

The second brother found it hard to like his new brother, too. The first brother was pampered and naive. He had read way way too many books and didn’t know what the real world was like. He seemed to have no idea how perfect his life had been, and his condescending tone was enough to drive the second brother crazy. The second brother tried not to feel resentful toward the father for raising such a smug jerk and giving him no choice but to spend time with him.

Fortunately, both brothers loved their adopted father, and fortunately, their adopted father was a very wise man. He found quiet moments to talk to each brother and point out that despite appearances they had come from the same place. He told them how much they had to learn from each other. At first, the brothers didn’t really believe him, but they respected him enough to think about what he had said. So time passed, and as they grew more used to each other,they began to see what their father had meant.

The first brother watched the second, listened to his story, and realized for the first time just what his life would have been if his father hadn’t taken him in. He saw the overwhelming gratitude that his brother felt and learned to be more grateful himself, to take less for granted. He saw the depths of his brothers pain and began to ask questions. He saw for the first time how little he knew about the world and he determined to change that.

The second brother watched the first brother calm confidence and began for the first time to believe that all this was real. He saw that their father truly was a man who could be trusted, that he had been good to the first brother all of his life, and for the first time the second brother let go of some of his fear and mistrust. He began to read the first brother’s favorite books and to feel his mind expanding under their influence. He saw for the first time how little he knew about the world and he determined to change that.

The two brothers became inseparable. They learned from each other and joked with each other and  grew to depend upon one another. They irritated one another and gave each other practice in forgiveness. They watched each other’s backs. Together they walked the dirty streets of their stinking town and remembered where they come from, before they had a home, before they had a fortune, before they had a father. Together they returned home with new orphans in tow. And together they knocked on their father’s door.

“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭8:14-17‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I give you due warning: this is different from the usual content of this blog, but if you want to truly know what stories I’m telling my kids these days, here they are. In addition to our fun Advent calendars and silly stories, I try to do a little reading with my kids each night that focuses on what Christmas is really about. I used to read from a children’s Bible, but they are just getting too old for that. Instead, this year, I’m trying to write something short for us, something that takes some of the important verses of the Bible but also is straight from me to them. I won’t have one for every day because that’s more than I can take on, but three or four times a week we’ll sit down and I’ll read, hoping a little truth gets through the impatience that this time of year generates. This is for my kids, but if you want to come along with us, you’re always welcome.

He was a decent guy. He worked hard. He had a place in the community, provided an essential service. He went to the synagogue, listened to the law, tried to live it out, even though most of his day was just about the tools in his workshop, the job at hand, the hot meal waiting when he finished his work. But he was honest with his customers and he honored his father and mother and he rested when he was supposed to rest.

His life seemed to be on track. He had work. He had his family. He was promised to be married soon. They would have their own house eventually. He would build it himself. They would have children and raise them in the same town where they had grown up. He would teach his sons to build and to build well.

Then the girl got pregnant. She completely betrayed him. It hurt his heart to think that she would reject him but it hurt his pride even worse. There was no hiding this. Eventually everyone was going to know what she’d done to him.

Still, he was a decent guy. He was hurt and he was angry, but he didn’t want to make things worse for her than they already were. Her life was going to be bad enough. Obviously, he couldn’t marry her now, but at least he could end their engagement quietly. If he didn’t make it public, it would be a while before the rest of the town found out why he had done it. She would have time to make other plans, a chance to leave town before the gossip started. She probably had relatives somewhere who would take her in. He was pretty sure there was an uncle or a cousin in Jerusalem, a priest, he had heard.

He would be righteous and follow the law and have nothing to do with her sin. But he would also be merciful to her. He wouldn’t say cruel things or demand repayment. It was the decent thing to do. He knew God would be pleased.

Then the angel came.

He was just lying on his bed, trying to sleep, when the most unbelievable request anyone had ever received came his way.

Don’t be afraid. Marry her anyway. Believe that she didn’t sin. Believe that her child is from God. It’s a boy. Name him Jesus. He’s the Messiah.

So much for his life being on track.

His days of being a decent, hard-working, ordinary carpenter like his father were over. This was going to take so much more than decency.

This was going to take faith the likes of which few people had ever known. To believe that the Messiah they had all been waiting for while hundreds of years passed was going to come now, to come here. To believe that his backwater, teenage fiance was the chosen mother of the Son of God.

This was going to take humility so enormous that it could swallow all of his pride. If he married her, everyone was going to think her sin was his sin. His parents would be crushingly disappointed in him. His standing in the community would plummet.

This was going to take courage so ridiculous it felt a lot like foolishness. To willingly accept the end of his life as he’d known it.  To face certain rejection and unavoidable danger. To take on the responsibility of protecting and raising the most important person in human history.

He lay in his bed and let it all wash over him.  Five minutes ago he had been so proud of being a decent man, and now he was expected to be…this.

But it turned out that being a decent, hard-working man like his father before him was exactly the preparation he had needed to become the humbly courageous man of faith this moment required.

The moment he considered that it might be true, that this girl might be innocent and faithful and scared and alone, his sense of justice left him no option but to stand by her.  No decent man would refuse to shelter and care for someone who was taking on such an enormous  and important burden.

And once begun, he would work at this task as hard as he had worked at everything else. If he could pour his sweat into building a sturdy wall, he could exert at least as much energy in defending a defenseless girl. If he could sacrifice sleep to work on his neighbor’s roof, he could sacrifice a little reputation for the woman who would be his wife. If he could dig a foundation while the finished home was only an idea, he could follow this unknown path step by step, taking on only what was right in front of him.

So he lay there in the dark, the angel gone, the words still echoing in his head, and he didn’t figure it all out. He went back and forth between acceptance and anger, between philosophy and fear, until finally he fell asleep.

And then in the morning, he did what he always did. He got up and did his duty.

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. (Matthew 1:24)

I give you due warning: this is different from the usual content of this blog, but if you want to truly know what stories I’m telling my kids these days, here they are. In addition to our fun Advent calendars and silly stories, I try to do a little reading with my kids each night that focuses on what Christmas is really about. I used to read from a children’s Bible, but they are just getting too old for that. Instead, this year, I’m trying to write something short for us, something that takes some of the important verses of the Bible but also is straight from me to them. I won’t have one for every day because that’s more than I can take on, but three or four times a week we’ll sit down and I’ll read, hoping a little truth gets through the impatience that this time of year generates. This is for my kids, but if you want to come along with us, you’re always welcome.
She was young. Old enough now to be considered a woman, to be promised in marriage to the local carpenter, but still young enough that all the changes in her body were new and uncomfortable. She knew she was a woman now, that she would soon be starting her own family, but most days she still felt like a child.

She lived in a small town. Everyone knew everyone else, and when the women met at the well in the mornings they talked freely about what their neighbors were up to.  She kind of liked listening to this gossip, trying to understand the hints the older women dropped and tucking away bits of information to talk over with her sister at home later.

She believed in God with all her heart. She listened to the law read out every week in the synagogue, and at home her family tried to follow that law. It was often a lot of work to keep all the regulations, but her father insisted. From the time she was a child, he told her about the sacrifices the priests made at the temple in Jerusalem, sacrifices they had to make because God knew this people couldn’t follow the law perfectly. She tried to do her best, thinking of those animals that died because she failed, but sometimes it was hard not to covet her neighbor’s new dress or think disrespectful thoughts about her mother.

When the angel came, it was completely overwhelming.

The very idea that she could be the mother of the Messiah, the one her father always talked about, the one who would save them all from the evil Romans who ruled them. It was thrilling.

She felt honored. She felt important.

The very idea that she would be pregnant. That her body would be changing yet again, that a child would be growing inside her, that it would be God’s child, that it would just appear there. It was impossible to grasp.

She felt bewildered. She felt like she was in over her head.

The very idea that she would be pregnant! That she wasn’t married! That everyone would see that she was having a child without a husband. That her parents would believe the worst of her. That her future husband would despise her. That the whole town would gossip. It was humiliating.

She felt sick. She felt terrified.

All these emotions swirled around, a messy tangle, impossible to sort out.

But this was God. The Creator of the universe had decided to do this to her.

What could she possibly say?

“I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.”

I give you due warning: this is different from the usual content of this blog, but if you want to truly know what stories I’m telling my kids these days, here they are.  In addition to our fun Advent calendars and silly stories, I try to do a little reading with my kids each night that focuses on what Christmas is really about. I used to read from a children’s Bible, but they are just getting too old for that. Instead, this year, I’m trying to write something short for us, something that takes some of the important verses of the Bible but also is straight from me to them. I won’t have one for every day because that’s more than I can take on, but three or four times a week we’ll sit down and I’ll read, hoping a little truth gets through the impatience that this time of year generates. This is for my kids, but if you want to come along with us, you’re always welcome.

Hold a small Christmas ball ornament in your hand. Close your eyes for just a minute.

Feel where you are sitting.  Picture it in your head.  Now imagine that you are slowly shrinking.  You shrink down, smaller and smaller.  You are now so small that the room around you seems like a giant’s room and that round ornmant is a huge globe that could crush you. Shrink down even smaller, smaller and smaller until you can see that the shiny globe is actually made up of little atoms all bonded together. You are microscopic now and that Christmas ornament is as big as the world to you.  You see the atoms that form it, and you can easily tell that what seemed like a solid surface is actually full of wide open spaces.  Each atom has its protons and neutrons clustered in the middle with several electrons circling around them like planets around a sun, and in between…nothing.  Wide open spaces.  What is keeping it all together? What is holding that wide open space tightly enough together that when you zoom out it seems solid? What keeps it from simply flying apart? From becoming nothing? 

‭‭Colossians‬ ‭1:15-17‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Are your eyes still closed? Keep them that way. 

Now feel yourself growing again.  You get larger and larger until you are your normal size.  Picture your hands. Look down at them if you want.  Now you know that they, too, are really just a collection of tiny, microscopic parts, full of moving pieces with infinite spaces in between, and all held together by the power of God alone.  Without him, you would fly apart, those useful hands would cease to exist.

Close your eyes again.

Instead of shrinking, now we are going to fly.  Imagine yourself lifting up off of your seat and floating right out the window.  You are going up and and up.  You can see your house, your whole neighborhood below you.  You go higher and higher.  Now you can see the whole city stretched out.  You go higher.  The countryside is like a tiny model of itself.  You go still higher.  You are leaving the atmosphere.  This is all imagination, luckily, so you can still breathe as you go up and up and find yourself floating in space.  Space, empty and dark is all around you.  The Earth shrinks as you fly and further and further away.  You look back at it and it is just a little ball, no bigger than that Christmas ornament.  It is spinning in the empty openness of space.  You look down on it and it seems so small and unimportant, so fragile. The people who walk its surface are so infintesimally tiny that you can’t even see them.  Whole bustling cities have disappeared into nothingness.  You look up and see other planets, see the sun, hot and burning, but here you can see beyond it, and space stretches out so far, as far as you can see, so that even the sun doesn’t seem so very significant as you fly away from it.  Now you’ve gone so far that the sun is the size of that Christmas ornament and the Earth can’t even be seen.  Where is all that stuff that seemed so important?  Where is the you that was sure your every feeling and thought was the most interesting thing that existed?  Just a speck, as miscroscopic as those atoms you examined earlier. 

‭‭Psalm‬ ‭8:3-4‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”

God is both infinitely large and also infinitely small. He is everything in between.  It was by his power that the universe was made and by his power that it continues to function.  It is by his power that you were made and by his power that your body holds together every second that you are alive.  It is his choice that make gravity work and keeps us all from spinning off into space.  Every minute of our existence only happens because he wants it to.  He is all there is, all that matters in this whole giant, intricate universe.  

Everything is about him.

That is where we start at Christmas.

That’s what we need to remember if we are really going to understand what happened when that same God brought himself down and confined himself inside one of these human bodies.  This is the God we are talking about.  The vast, limitless, all-powerful, all-sustaining God of everything.  We have to start here if we are truly going to grasp the miracle of what He did.

Isaiah‬ ‭40:21-28‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.”

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