Christmas Miracle

The sun sets on Bethlehem’s horizon, dragging with it the heat of the day. The dark and the chill of the night creep in, spread across the land, find their way through open windows, cracks in walls, find their way into skin and bones, make themselves at home. A people living in darkness kneel in darkness, heads bowed by a weight they cannot shake, and beg God for mercy. Beg him for a miracle. Plant yet more tears in the poisoned soil of their lives.

The first Christmas day has risen and fallen. The wait is over. Jesus is here. But for every joyful shepherd or seeking wiseman, there are thousands who go to sleep that night still waiting for their miracle. Still unaware that God has not only heard and answered, but become. Immanuel. Redemption has arrived.

The wait is over, yet still they wait. Still they wake in the middle of the night, plagued by trembling heart and aching soul. They cry out in the all too familiar refrain: “How long, Lord, how long?” For all they can see, the promise of God is still unfulfilled. For all they know, there is nothing to believe in but silence and emptiness.

Across town, the promise lays asleep in a manger. The miracle sleeps. Light asleep in darkness.

 

This will not be the last time Jesus sleeps. This will not be the last time the power of Jesus underwhelms, delays, displays itself as apparent inaction. The storms will come and Jesus will sleep in the sinking boat. The dead will be buried and Jesus will sleep for three more nights. The cross will kill and Jesus will sleep.

If I am honest, sometimes I wonder if he is sleeping still. We wait and wait and cry and beg for mercy. For miracle. We hang all our hopes on him and wonder if he will ever show up. Jesus sleeps and we resign ourselves to our inevitable end.

Christmas tells a different story: Immanuel, God with us now. Jesus has shown up, though maybe not in the way we expected. The promise has been fulfilled, even if our eyes can’t see it. The miracle is a reality long before we ever see the proof. Jesus sleeps, but the storm will be calmed, the dead will rise, all things will be redeemed.

“Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

(Habakkuk 3:17-18)

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—

how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
(Romans 8:32)