Isaiah 7:14
“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).” (NLT)

For a couple of summers while I was in high school, I worked on the maintenance crew at Keeneland. My primary job was to carry around a weed eater for nine hours a day, doing battle with plantlife that relentlessly grew around trees, barns, and the endless fence rows in and around the racetrack property. Work started promptly at 7:30am, early by any high schooler’s standards. There were times during the hot summer days when all we could think of was a break from the heat, and a nap. I, along with the other high schoolers I worked with, became very creative in finding places to hide and doze while hopefully not being discovered by the foreman with our idle weed eaters. I’m sure I’ve been in almost every barn, top to bottom, on the Keeneland property. Trying to snooze in those barns was interesting, surrounded by smells of every sort, and dust—thick dust everywhere. In addition to weed-eating, there were times when the entire maintenance crew was called upon to “muck” stalls after the thoroughbreds had been moved elsewhere. That’s a smell that sticks with you.

We’re in the midst of our Christmas teaching series, Born in a Barn. It’s a reminder this season that the way in which Jesus became one of us is itself a message. Our tendency is to sentimentalize and sanitize the manger scene, viewing it in our cozy warm homes by the light of our Christmas trees, fireplaces, or scented candles. (There’s no judgment in that statement, by the way!) But God stepped into our world and put Himself within reach, in the lowest way possible. The extraordinary became ordinary. God emptied Himself and became vulnerable. So, the setting in which Jesus arrived reveals something. But so does the home in which He was born. We’ll spend some time this week learning how Jesus’ imperfect home dynamics can give us hope for ours.

Monday’s Reflection

Are there some disappointments or expectations that have gone unmet for you regarding your home life? Take a moment and name those in prayer. The Father is eager to listen.