Today’s Selection:
Amy Grant – “Breath of Heaven”
The church that I attended as a young boy often had a Christmas program performed by the youth, and for several years in a row, we (the youth) sang this song. I admire this song because, for one, it is original in content and theme; I don’t hear too many songs like this listening to the radio around Christmas. I also love the theme: despite the associations we have of Christmas in modern culture, the story told of Mary and Joseph is really a story of much pain, suffering and (I think) questioning God’s presence.
If you disagree with me, think of it. What were her parents and friends thinking when Mary became pregnant and claimed an angel appeared to her? Would they believe her, or would they assume (like I would) that she had been unfaithful to Joseph? Or perhaps that she had sinned with Joseph during their engagement (which to the outsider would explain why he stayed with her). And what of the Romans (i.e. the evil foreign empire) ordering them to go to Bethlehem while she was pregnant? And giving birth in a barn? And then fleeing for their lives into a foreign land because Herod wanted to kill their newborn child?
The Christmas story is one of remarkable literary significance. Jesus’s birth into the world was a time of suffering and violence, and it is easy when we suffer to wonder where God is. The Christmas story is fundamentally this: in Mary and Joseph’s suffering and struggles, it would be easy for them to ask where God could possibly be when, in fact, God could not have been closer. He was physically present with them.
What if this is true? What if, in our struggles, God draws nearer? That is the Christmas story.
SfC
