*This Advent season of 2023, my family will go through the Psalms. It is our hope that this Advent series will center around the themes of Longing, Deliverance and Hope. We will see the beauty of Christ and God’s sovereign plan in the birth and salvation of Christ. I invite you to join us this Christmas.
Our daughter is away at college this year as a first year. Today, she was running a 103 fever. Our daughter doesn’t normally run fever when she is sick-it has always been a stress for me as her mom. When she was little, I never knew she had ear infections until she would wake up in the middle of the night. She never cried, pulled at them or ran fever. One time, I will never forget, she looked at me and said, “mom, it feels like something is coming out of my ear.” It was blood. She had busted an ear drum.
So when our daughter is running fever and she asks her parents to come, you drop everything and drive over 3 hours to take your kid to urgent care. What does this have to do with advent? Well as we drove through the city, I couldn’t help but stare at the window at all the Christmas shopping and goings and comings of everyone.
I felt so invisible. It was crazy to think that there were a million people in those strip malls we passed, cars bumper to bumper on the highway, endless long lines at Buc-ee’s, but I knew no one noticed us. I knew no one knew the worry in my heart, the fears that come with long trips, the needs and wants as parents trying to provide for their children. I felt invisible.
It made me think of Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem. It would have been crazy busy. People would have been traveling from all over. Did anyone notice them? I mean, we obviously know there was no room for them. We know they were poor because of their sacrifices later brought to the temple. But did anyone really see them?
Joseph must have been worried. He had his wife on a donkey with child, due at any moment. And Mary. Her mom heart must have been terrified. I wonder at times how they held it together?
One of my favorite movies has this scene where this woman is currently in love with a baseball pitcher. There is an accident and he cuts his hand. They are in the snow mountains and they are in the crazyness of the hospital and no one is helping them. She loses it. Starts screaming at the top of her lungs, “Isn’t baseball American’s favorite pasttime!” Obviously nurses and doctors stop and run to her to help the player.
If there ever is a moment like that, I really feel like traveling to Bethlehem would have been that moment!
“HELLO, DON’T YOU REALIZE I HAVE THE MESSIAH, THE FUTURE KING, THE ONE WHO WILL DIE TO SAVE ALL OF YOU IN MY STOMACH?!?!? DO I NOT DESERVE A CUSHY ROOM, A SPA MASSAGE, AND SERIOUSLY THIS DONKEY STINKS-GIVE ME A CARRIAGE!”
Luke does not record this happening. Because it doesn’t. They must have felt so unseen.
Rob and I visited Lanier Theological Library a few days ago. I had to snap some pics of their manger scene. It is the entire town and if you look in the back center, you see the Christ-child. I could not believe how small and insignificant they looked in the busy town of Bethlehem.
But we know they were not insignificant! We also know we are not invisible or insignificant. Because as we traveled, God was with us every step of the way as He always is. Today, we see this truth in Psalm 139:1-16,
O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
And lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts;
You knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
Prayer
Father God, we praise you for knowing us and that we are never invisible to you! We praise you that you’re ALWAYS loving! May we always praise your goodness! Thank you for seeing us! Thank you for your unchanging grace upon us! In Jesus Name, Amen!
