God isn't asking us to explain the Christmas story, that is to make logical and absolute sense of it. It is not possible that we could, for it is, after all, the most illogical account of love that has ever been told and recorded. It is the account of the totally irrational, nonsensical and preposterous, and some would say absurd love a creator has for his creation; passion that a designer has for his design; the love of the lover for the beloved. But though God isn't asking us to explain it He is asking that we be witness of it, and yes, you can be a witness of what you have seen but can't explain. When a child sees a shooting star does she deny what she saw because she doesn't yet understand what she saw? I dare you to find a single participant in the biblical narrative of the Christmas story, who could, or even tried to explain what they saw, and I double dog dare you to find one who would or could deny what they saw. Three scholars from the east traveled, some say for years, not to explain the star they followed, but only to worship the one to whom the star lead them. Shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem didn't come to the stall where Joseph, Mary and Jesus were, in order to explain the angelic appearance and announcement, but they did come because of it. I see now that the purity of God's love can never be contaminated by the filth of the lives it embraces; that the strength of God's love can't be dimished by the weaknesses of those it is held out to; that the depths of the oceans of God's love can never be measured by the puddles we are standing in now, nor can the reason for His love be discouraged by our inability to "get it". At times it seems to me that God hung the stars in space and set galaxies spinning just for the sheer joy of it, to keep us guessing and searching, (whether humanity knows it or not we need to be kept guessing and to keep searching). By unanwerable questions and undiscoverable details God has ensured that we will keep looking up even when continuing to seems a most irrational, preposterous and absurd waste of one's life. But, this is, I think, the way it is for witnesses, for those who can't help but look up, to talk about what they've seen, heard and experienced regardless if what they do, what they "waste" their time on seems a most absurd thing to those who have yet to see what they have seen and to hear what they have heard. The delay of details does not mean the absence of them. One day for those who have continued to look up, the irrational, illogical and absurd love of God will come into perfect focus. On that day details that out number the stars in the Milky Way by a million to one, will be revealed with clarity that will make every starry-eyed witness dance a jig while shouting; "I knew it. I just knew it.", and sing a song that confirms what many have suspected all along. Hadels' Messiah....that was just choir practice.
Merry Christmas, fellow witnesses, Merry Christmas. Keep looking up.
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