Thursday, December 6, 2012

Calmer wy to Christmas Day 6

Luke 2:6
While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.

If you’re a parent, you’ve probably got a pretty vivid memory of the birth of your first child. For us the event began at around 4:00 am when my wife got up in the night and I suddenly realized that it was, well, TIME.

I downed a quick bowl of cereal while she finished getting ready and then off to the hospital we went. Complicating matters for me was the fact that it was a Sunday morning. Thankfully we had given the president of the congregation a sermon manuscript from Tony Campolo (since I don’t use manuscripts myself when I preach) as a contingency plan. I think he practically gave birth to something or another himself when I called him at around 7:30 am and said he’d be preaching that day. But preach it he did-- and it was a good thing too—our son was born at 10:40 am that day, almost to the minute of when, back at church, the president finished the sermon with a rousing AMEN! That was quite a day!

I can only imagine what Joseph was thinking when Mary told him that it was time. It means everything else that he may have planned for the day would suddenly be put on hold. More pressing matters were at hand.

The calmer way to Christmas takes to heart that it’s okay to have a change of plans for important matters. Whether one must awake from a sound sleep or simply take a pause from the project of the moment, occasionally one must simply MAKE time whenever it IS time for a monumental event. That’s what happened to Joseph and Mary so many years ago.


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