Oh come, Oh come.

He came quietly.

Like all those He sent before Him, He was not recognized by people of good reputation.Those sorts of people do not spend time looking for pregnant teenagers having children in dark caves. Why would they? Nothing ever comes of that sort of thing.

He needed her.

He had chosen her to care for Him, to wrap Him in cloth, to bed Him down in the trough. It was the best she could do, and He would often go without the things that other chidren had. She cherished and pondered the great mysteries of the universe, that one thing that we would, that she would persue all her life and never get any closer to, but how He loved to see her run towards it. Could all of Him really fit into such a small and fragile thing?

He was a baby.

He could have been a man. He could have appeared on the earth with the ability to feed and care for Himself, but that is not what He chose. He chose the dark place, that dirty stall where good people are afraid to go. If these tragically flawed creatures could not care for Him, He would die. They would teach Him to speak, to walk, to dress Himself, to work, all the while in awe that He should not be theirs, but He gave Himself to them. He became what all other gods were too afraid to become.

Human.

He came to a world that had turned itself on its head.

There was already someone claiming to be the son of god. There were many claming solutions to every ailment, but it was not medicine that they needed.

It was freedom.

The problem was one of ownership. These things that they thought would be a help had become their masters, and there were debts to be paid, more than a lifetime, and so they had given over everything. Freedom would never come of their own accord, it had to be something bigger.

He was small.

Unless you were in That dark place, on that night so long ago, you would have to crane your neck to hear it. The sound of a child crying in a manger. He was God, and He put Himself in our care, not so that He would understand us, but so that we would know that there is nothing He would not endure to be with us, not even the lives that we had forced ourselves to live. They had prayed for thousands of years for this day, a faint hope.

Come, Immanuel.

It was with that cry in the night, so soft it was missed by nearly all. That sound that said:

I am here. Even at my weakest, I am stronger than whatever has you.

and the world has not stopped spinning since He left it.


Merry Christmas.