The week before Christmas was a joyous madness in my youth: Sunday School Christmas program, choir rehearsals, decorating the tree, preparation for Christmas dinner. As an adult it was just as mad, but not as joyous. For me for years there was not only preparations for Christmas Eve services, but rushing to grade tests and papers for the classes I taught at the university, and the dread of walking into Zayres with the insanity of shoppers running havoc through the store.

What was it like for Mary and Joseph making their way to Bethlehem without a place to stay?  A favorite painting of mine is the Census at Bethlehem (1655) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

It’s set in a 16th century Flemish village in winter near sundown. All sorts of activity is going on including a pig being slaughtered as people pay taxes to a representative of the Habsburg emperor. In the midst of the chaos are Mary and Joseph. Can you find them? They are just right of center near the bottom of the picture. Nobody is paying attention to them. 

This painting captures the way Jesus came into the world–unexpected, barely noticed, with the hubbub of ordinary life buzzing everywhere. I sometimes feel that’s Christmas today–a (sometimes joyful) madness with little attention to Jesus. Pray that it might be different.

Savior of the nations, come:
virgin’s son make here your home.
Marvel now, O heaven and earth.
God has chosen such a birth.

Ambrose of Milan and Martin Luther

Read Revelation 22:20 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne