Part of my spiritual practice includes lectio divina, or sacred reading. I read a few verses from scripture at a time and ponder them in order to hear God's voice speaking through them.
Today I read in the second chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, "This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger."
It's so familiar from Christmastime that its oddness almost escapes notice.
Why would God's sign to the world be a just-born infant wrapped up like the dead, laid in a feeding trough for large animals?
Why would a bunch of sheep-herders run at the chance to see this so-called sign?
If you don't know that this child is destined from his birth for death, the mummy look doesn't make sense. If you don't know that by losing his life, this child will become food for all who hunger, this doesn't make sense.
How can this bizarre telling of a child's birth make any sense without knowing the whole story that is to come?
What signs and wonders does God leave for me to see that I don't yet understand? How do I develop the imagination to see what they could mean and to strive for what God is setting in motion?
Today I read in the second chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, "This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger."
It's so familiar from Christmastime that its oddness almost escapes notice.
Why would God's sign to the world be a just-born infant wrapped up like the dead, laid in a feeding trough for large animals?
Why would a bunch of sheep-herders run at the chance to see this so-called sign?
If you don't know that this child is destined from his birth for death, the mummy look doesn't make sense. If you don't know that by losing his life, this child will become food for all who hunger, this doesn't make sense.
How can this bizarre telling of a child's birth make any sense without knowing the whole story that is to come?
What signs and wonders does God leave for me to see that I don't yet understand? How do I develop the imagination to see what they could mean and to strive for what God is setting in motion?
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