Praise God!

 

Please read Luke 2:1-7; 8-20

Legislation is passed which gives corporations and the wealthy more power to “buy” elections.

More than 100 children are massacred in Pakistan by the Taliban.

A mountain lion is shot in Bourbon County.

Many have lost loved ones this past year.

 

We remember the birth of a baby to parents in Bethlehem.

How does this birth affect troublesome circumstances and life situations?

We read it right before us.

 

The context into which Jesus was born speaks to our question.

The government was greedy and wanted more taxes for Rome.

A census counted the taxpayers.

The people did not have a voice.

Oppression ruled the day.

Soon after the wise men approached Herod, he unleashed a wide net of genocide, killing all the children under two years old.

Shepherds are protecting their sheep from “mountain lions” and the like. They are expected to kill a predator which comes to attack the sheep.

In the midst of their good news and bad news, they receive news in a remarkable way of a glorious thing happening while working the third shift, scraping together a living for them and their families.

They were told, that in the midst of their good news and bad news, there was glorious news.

This glorious news would color  and shape all the “news” they would ever receive, even the death of a loved one.

There would be love, infused into the very creation and into each soul that would receive him.

There would be eternal solutions to temporary problems.

There would be those who would come to help Mary make sense of what is happening.

Even in the midst of heaps of bad news, there was a wonderful reason to praise God.

How do you read this story?

Moving to the deeper places,
Jeff