Beyond the ordinary

The child was born to an unwed mother in a shelter built for livestock. She couldn?t afford hospitalization and had no insurance to her name. The man who stayed close to her side wasn?t the baby?s biological father. To his credit he stuck by his woman, deflecting the taunts of co-workers and the gossip of neighbors. He said he loved her?and also the baby that grew quietly inside her. But was that enough? A blue-collar laborer, his financial future was cloudy at best.

Soon after the baby?s birth, government officials declared that the infant should be taken out of the home ? by force, if necessary. Informed of the order, and with little money to their name, the couple and child slipped out of town and headed for the border. The immigrants took refuge in a neighboring country, surviving there on the mercy of strangers.

What hope would we hold for such a child? What good end could come from such a pitiful beginning? Would it surprise us that the adult child was branded a troublemaker, a criminal and that he died violently ? death by capital punishment. But to this child, this man, we owe our freedom and our lives ? all that we are or could hope to be.

We know this story so well?and yet, maybe we don?t know it as well as we should. The scandal of Christmas was not simply that God came to earth in human form, but that he came in a way so unexpected. The Prince came as a pauper. He changed the world from the bottom of the social ladder.

Two millenia later, not much has changed. The child-man comes to us today in unexpected forms, the inconvenient moment, the illogical lifestyle. The miracle we need this Christmas is the intervention of the unexpected. In this age, when we have so much figured out and prepackaged, we need something much different. Shaken assumptions. Shattered cynicism. We need a new encounter with an upside-down kingdom that can transform our lives, our world.

We humans find comfort in the routine. We are so secure in our habits. But we need so much more in this life. This Christmas, look for more than you expect. Seek something beyond the ordinary. Believe the unbelievable ? that because of one extraordinary child, each of us can be better, deeper, different than we can imagine possible. We can be saved.

It happened then, it can happen today. ?DR

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