Love Comes Again to Bethlehem

The years carried the family onward. Children grew into parents, familiar names became memories, and generations followed roads their ancestors would never see. From this distance, kingdoms seem to rise and fall like passing weather. Within those years, people loved one another, lost one another, and carried promises whose fulfillment lay beyond their sight.

There were voices along the way. Through the prophets came the assurance that God had not forgotten them. Isaiah spoke of good news for the poor, broken hearts bound up, and liberty proclaimed to captives. Those words remained among the people as those who first heard them grew old. They were written, read aloud, and entrusted to another generation.

Before we follow the road any further, perhaps we should turn our imagined scroll over again. We have watched the human side, where a lifetime passes beneath our eyes in a sentence. We have crossed sorrows that those who endured them could scarcely cross in years. From the other side, what might it mean to know and love every person whose name we have passed?

We can approach that question only a little way. Our compassion grows weary, and sometimes we turn away from what we cannot bear. His love continues toward those who suffer. Beneath the promises lies a compassion deeper than we can measure, reaching into every household, knowing every absence. As we glimpse something of it, we find ourselves saying that He had to come.

And the road brings us back to Bethlehem. We have been here before, when Ruth gathered grain and Naomi’s empty household began to fill again. We watched her hold Obed, while beyond her sight lay Jesse, David, and generations still to come. Now Joseph travels to David’s town with Mary, who is carrying a child.

Before she holds Him in her arms, she carries Him beneath her heart. The One through whom all things were made is growing within the body of a woman. Through the small cord joining them, He receives nourishment from a life He Himself has given. We have followed the love story across centuries; now we draw close to something for which the centuries have scarcely prepared us.

The first Adam was formed from the earth. The last Adam comes through a mother. His birth will leave upon His body the small mark we carry of having depended upon another. He enters the family’s life from within, through pregnancy and birth, through the need to be fed, warmed, and held.

While they are in Bethlehem, Mary gives birth to her son. She wraps Him and lays Him in a manger. He is God, and He is truly human. The hands through which she will learn to recognize His touch are small enough to close around her finger. When He cries, she can lift Him. The One who knows every life along the road we have traveled now receives a mother’s care.

Perhaps we should stay beside them for a moment. We have named Him, but can we begin to take in who is here? The compassion we could scarcely glimpse on the other side of the scroll has brought Him into reach. Mary can touch His face. Joseph can draw near. Before them lies a child who will grow within their household, while His love reaches back beyond the beginning of them all.

Outside the town, shepherds are keeping watch through the night when an angel comes to them and the glory of the Lord shines around them. They are afraid, but the message is one of joy. A Savior has been born in David’s town, Christ the Lord, and they will find Him wrapped and lying in a manger. Then a multitude of the heavenly host joins in praise, giving glory to God in the highest and proclaiming peace on earth.

Heaven’s rejoicing reaches the fields while Mary tends her child. Those two scenes belong to the same arrival. The shepherds hurry to Bethlehem and find the family, just as they have been told. They speak of what they have heard, and Mary keeps these things, pondering them in her heart. We can remain with her there, allowing the angels’ announcement and the sight of her son to settle together within us.

Years will pass before we hear Him stand among the people of Nazareth and read from Isaiah. The child will grow, and the words will still be there, waiting upon the scroll: good news for the poor, freedom for captives, healing for the brokenhearted. When He speaks them, we will remember this night.

For now, love has come again to Bethlehem. The One who will speak those words is here, breathing among us, and the angels are praising God.