Weekly Reflections
To make the Christmas story live for us we can use our imaginations to enter the story.
Theologian Chris Glaser offers a number of questions that can help us in such an exercise:
‘Are you King Herod, fearful of losing power or privilege as God is doing a “new thing”?
Or an Eastern sage enduring academic malaise, seeking a star of inspiration?
A shepherd routinely going about your business when the skies seem to open up?
A prophet crying in the wilderness?
Are you a religious leader holding on to tradition at all costs?
An empire’s bureaucrat missing the unfolding human drama?
Or one whose life is too full to welcome a homeless, unwed mother-to-be?
Joseph, serving quietly on the periphery of sacred drama?
Mary, with an unsought calling to do the dirty and painful and lonely work of birthing a new movement?
Or a vulnerable child born into a vicious and violent world?
Truth is, over a lifetime, we may play all of these roles in this story. Good to remember, at this time of year, that we hinder or help, blink or behold this nativity of God’s Word to us.’
