​23rd Day of Advent, December 24, 2018 “CHRISTMAS EVE”

Have you ever gone walking on a cold and clear winter night? When there are no clouds? And every star seems to be set in its own crystal setting?

When the moon is fiercely bright? Bright enough to see your shadow? Where your breath swirls around you like pipe smoke?

Have you? Ever?

I have. 

On such a night we can imagine the Holy family resting before an inn in Bethlehem, waiting as Joseph pleads for his wife to be allowed to dismount, to rest, perhaps even deliver her baby. 

There is no room. There is no room anywhere, the little town of Bethlehem is filled with travelers, all ordered to pay a tax and enroll in a census, by a Caesar they have never ever even met.

And suddenly, in the bright white light of that Midnight clear. a stable area was made ready, straw was laid in a manger, and closely observed by oxen and sheep and goats and donkeys, He, Jesus, was born.

Christmas came, and Jesus came. The first Advent was realized:
It came upon a midnight clear, O joy to the world, the Lord has come. O, come let us adore Him. He is Christ, the Lord. 

Let all of humankind say, “AMEN!”