Photo Credit: Sophie Pope

The Greatest Gift
Reading Selection for December 24^th
“God in the Manger”

Luke 2:7 (NLT) – “She [Mary]…laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.”

All of God in a woman; in a baby; in a manger; on a Cross; within us.  Is it possible for all of Divinity to dwell in all of our humanity?  It defies imagination.  It defies logic.  It defies all human reason.  Love like this cannot be pictured or concluded.  It had to be demonstrated.  It had to express Itself in the only possible explanation, a miracle.

Love, unconditional, heaven and earth-moving Love, creation-inspiring Love, could not stay Home and watch from afar.  Love was compelled to act.  Love was compelled to move.  Love came down to us.   Love was the only Way.  Love is the only Way.

In all of our imagining; in all of our logic and reason, we couldn’t get to Love.  He came to us.  Divine Love wrapped Himself in our humanity, made Himself vulnerable to us, submitted Himself to our care, and embraced us as His own.

Ann Voskamp writes on page 246,

“Rejected at the inn, holy God comes in small to where you feel rejected and small.  God is with you now.  Wherever you are–in a soundless cry or hidden brokenness or in your ache–God always wants to be with you.  You are not ever left alone in this.  We are never left alone in this; God is with us.

     “This is Love you can’t comprehend.  You can only feel and touch this kind.  There, in the place where you feel rejected, you can be touched by God.  There, in the places you feel small, you can touch God.  He came in the flesh.”

Advent is here, Love has come.  Can you make room for Love right where you are?