There is still sadness and grief, warfare and strife, disease and death. But God is here, in the midst of those things of earth, showing us a glimpse of the heaven that awaits us. This baby of Bethlehem is the bridge between earth and heaven, the one through whom we lay down the staff and take up the wings. We follow him, we seek to live as he lived, to love as he loved, to serve as he served. When we take this Christ into our hearts, when his way becomes our way, when God s truth touches us through him and is shared with the world through us, then God is made real right here, right now.
Incarnation happens again.
It is a strange story we tell, this story of God made real in Jesus. It is stranger still to claim that God is made real through us as Christ becomes a part of who we are. One poet has tried to summarize the story, and done fairly well. His words are best known by the title of his work, One Solitary Life. On Christmas Day we commemorate the birth of a baby in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.