Stable Baby

There is an amazingly casual quality to the description of the birth of Christ.  It is just there without fanfare or histrionics.  The child was delivered and no bright light struck the stable with golden hues, no blast of trumpets heralded the emergence of his arms and head, no earthquake shook the stable as the baby was softly given over to Mary.  It was a birth and in the moments immediately before and after there was a commonality to it...it was like your birth, like the birth of your parents before you and their parents before them.  Christ came as one more birth in a long line of births and the glow of it was as stupendous as when every other wanted and joyously anticipated child has emerged.   Nothing is so small and seemingly insignificant as when the Christ is born in you, when He makes you His home and yet the supernatural nature of it will awaken soon enough and your life will come alive with Him just as it did for the shepherds, the Magi, the Disciples, his mother and Joseph.  It may be silent now and even a bit dark;  it may be mundane and paltry as it gets lost in the uproar of the world's business, this coming of Christ to you but He has come and it will be astounding what He has done in you and through you soon enough.  The Christ will work His way out of you at home, at work and in all your studies.  He will clear out the darkness and His sun will shine brightly wherever you go.  You will become a light for the world because the Light of Christ will manifest itself in you at every point along your way.  Bethlehem may have been a dirty little town and the stable where Christ was born smelly and confining but soon enough His Presence exploded into the world with all the glory of God manifested.  It could be that you feel you are a mere stable for the Christ child's birth but nothing is so noble as the one who has Him born in her soul and the angels cannot contain their joy at seeing  Christ at home in you.

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.  Luke 2: 6-7a