December 23, 2008

Season’s greetings to Friends and Family!

Although we are in the States with family for the holidays, many of our friends and neighbors in the Holy Land will be making their annual pilgrimage to Bethlehem to celebrate the birth of Jesus. They will board buses early in the afternoon in Jerusalem, make their way through the checkpoint with scores of others, and hope to be at the Church of the Nativity when the parade begins.

Of course their visit will not be complete without standing in the long line to pass by and pay homage to the location where the Christ child is believed to have been born. In a quiet part of the church behind the tall altar surrounded by silver hanging lamps, there is a small cavern adorned with a shiny silver star embedded in the floor marking the site of the Savior’s birth.

The remarkable aspect of visiting the cavern is that in order to fit through the space you must either enter on your knees or by stooping low. Max Lucado remarks in his celebration of the majesty of the manger entitled “One Incredible Moment,” that experiencing the Savior is much the same. Humanity may,

See the world standing tall, but to witness the Savior, you have to get down on your knees.

So…

While the theologians were sleeping
And the elite were dreaming
And the successful were snoring,
The meek were kneeling.
They were kneeling before the One only the meek will see.  They were kneeling in front of Jesus.

Whether celebrating in Bethlehem or in places far away, we are united and humbled in the precious moment of Christ’s birth.

Since our arrival home we have had the opportunity to visit with folks from the Sacramento and San Francisco Presbyteries associated with the Joining Hands program with which we work. We were lucky to be present in Sacramento for the lighting of the California Christmas tree at the capital as well as discover a new way to Christmas carol in San Francisco—using a cable car!

We wish you a blessed holiday, the love of family and friends to share it with, and the profound knowledge that if only for a moment, time stands still to stop and worship the Christ child.

Grace and Peace,

The 2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 349