A Journey Through Advent: Saturday, Dec. 25, 2021
by the Rt. Rev. Deon K. Johnson
Bishop of The Episcopal Diocese of Missouri
Today's readings:Psalm 96; Isaiah 9:2-7; Luke 2:1-20
“Because there was no place for them in the Inn…”
God breaks into our world once again at Christmas.
God breaks into our world,
not with fanfare or pomp or ceremony,
but in a borrowed food trough
in a backwater town two miles south of Nowhere.
We made no room, had no plan for the in-breaking of God’s own self.
We felt secure in the halls of power, in the academies of authority, in the citadels of accumulation.
Our imaginations left no room for the in-break of God.
And yet…
God breaks the barriers of failed imagination,
God shatters the illusion of displaced hope,
God disrupts the cycle of misguided love.
God enters into our world and absolutely nothing changes,
Except everything.
In the piercing cries of a new born baby
In a backwater town two mile south of Nowhere,
The Word becomes flesh and blood and bone,
And beckons us to wonder,
With Mary, and Joseph and the mismatched sheep
and the foolhardy shepherds.
Love enters into our world,
With a quiet whisper and whimper
And changes nothing, except everything!
Now the work of Christmas begins,
Because there was no place for them in the Inn.
Tags: A Journey Through Advent