Jesus-the Poorest Of the Poor

 

This past week was my turn to houseclean our church ..After working overtime from my job, I drove into our church’s parking lot to unlock the doors and begin vaccuming the floors.   Our church puts out an antique manger scene near the side entrance.  The figures of Mary, Joseph , Baby Jesus and one little lamb are almost life size and illuminated from within by light bulbs..  The manger is a wooden crèche covering the figures with strewn hay placed under the figure of baby Jesus .     A life size figure of Jesus as an adult is also placed on the side..    The entire display is so simple and humble..   and it reminds me of just how simple and humble our Lord’s earthly parents truly were..and how simple and pure He is Whom has emptied Himself and made Himself of no reputation..    and the poverty in which He had been born into.

I think it was the hay that really affected me..  the realization that our Lord was born in a feeding trough where animals of labor ate from.,  and where they rested for the night on hay.   How far removed are our churches of today and the real poverty and simplicity our Lord lived from first entering this World to the day He was executed from this World.   He was as Jonah in the belly of the whale..   the Whale representing this dark World which could not contain Him any longer, so it “spat Him out” of it’s belly.

When I looked at the life size figure of adult Jesus placed at the edge of this humble manger scene,  I saw a Jesus with a simply woven garment.. possibly patched up in spots  where daily use wore holes in the cloth.   Red sand dust showing near the hem of His garment where He walked the wilderness roads from village to village.. about His Father’s business.  Worn sandals that revealed great use.  I touched the shoulder of His life size figurine.. His shoulder ..  and I felt as though I was touching the shoulder of a homeless man.   Would I be offended in Him., in His poverty?  Or would I embrace my Lord, who out of total love, emptied Himself to identify with the poorest of the poor.

Our Lord, Emmanuel .. God with Us,  came down to our World from the Ivory palaces and streets of Gold, to sleep on earth’s hay and live with beast-like mankind.. that we would follow His Light and find the way back to the Father– His Father and through Him, now ours once again.♥

 

 

 

Jesus Is The Reason

It is not a Silent Night

In our Modern Age’s towns,

With the tinsel on the trees,

Twinkle lights hung all around;

 

Plastic Santas in the yards,

Christmas store sales every year,

Buying, selling, marrying, drinking

Mankind’s “Holiday cup of cheer”;

 

Drunk with feasting the people sleep,

With their Holiday lights so bright

Unknown to them within their slumber,

*God’s stars shine in the night;

 

The kids have cookies set aside

For Santa Claus to snack on,

And every television’s on

With Holiday distraction,

 

But the Christ Child waits out on the streets,

For His head a place to lay,

Just as His parents long ago

Had sought a place to stay;

 

For there wasn’t room at Mankind’s “Inn”,

And yet again – no room for Him,

Except in silent hearts who pray

For Jesus Christ, their hearts to stay.♥♥♥

~Unknown author

*- those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever..”  — Daniel 12:1-3

Darkness Is As Light with Thee

 

“Where shall I go from Your Spirit?  Or Where shall I flee from Your Presence?  If I ascend to Heaven, you are there!  If I make my bed in Shoel, you are there!  If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the Sea- even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, “let only darkness cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to Thee, the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light with Thee.  For you didst form my inward parts.  You didst knit me together in my mother’s womb.”- Psalm 139: 7-13

This Psalm speaks of darkness that seems to be darkness, but is actually light as far as God is concerned..   the type of darkness that leads to Light.  Seeds germinate under the dark soil before their seedlings break through the darkness to face the Sun’s light.     The mother’s womb is surrounded by such darkness and the tomb Jesus was buried in before He resurrected was surrounded by the same..      Jesus mentioned before His crucifixion that He would be like Jonah who was three days in the belly of the whale.  That belly of the whale was like a womb .. or a tomb.    Jesus experienced both and He came out of both.    He was like that seed that allowed Himself to lose Himself.. to fall to the ground so that He would bear much fruit.   The darkness was as Light to Him..and to the Father.

I prayed before opening to His recorded words to Gabrielle Bossis in “He and I”, and blindly opening the pages, my eyes fell on the following quote from Him :     “My grace?  often you do not see it but it grows like a seed.  Only you must make the earth ready for the planting.”     Hmmm, seeds grow in the dark soil like a baby is “knit together” by God in the mother’s womb.    The Holy Spirit “forms our inward parts” (spirits) as we allow Him to work within us..  quietly and “in the dark” to bring us to a new resurrected life in Christ!