About ten years ago Carol and I visited London for a few days, including Royal Albert Hall, the great round theater built in memory of Queen Victoria's husband. The tour included walking past the royal box where the queen and her family would sit during a performance.
Visiting such places that acknowledge royalty, one has a feeling that great rulers would not quite understand how common people feel. They are surrounded by opulence, privilege, servants, bodyguards and fanfare as they live the same 24 hour day as you and I do. But they almost live in another world.
When Queen Elizabeth II recently visited the United States, she brought four thousand pounds of luggage, including two outfits for every occasion, a mourning outfit in case someone died, forty pints of plasma, and white kid-leather toilet seat covers. She brought along her own hairdresser, two valets, at least one physician and a host of other attendants. Her brief visit to America cost five million dollars!
In meek contrast, the Almighty God's visit to earth took place in an animal shelter with only two attendants and nowhere to lay the newborn child but a feed trough. The birth of the King of kings, the event that divided history and even our calendar into two parts, had more animal than human witnesses. He had so little security that a mule could have stepped on him.
We humans, even the most poor, are so privileged. Most astronomers believe there is no other planet anywhere among the millions of solar systems that would support life as we have it. Almighty God our Creator has so arranged the atoms of our bodies that we think, love, feel gratitude and believe, activities that no other creatures are capable of. And in this blessed season, we give thanks that we are so privileged as to be loved by our Creator.
The birth of Jesus is love come down from heaven. May you find extra joy in these days, the joy the surpasses any hint of sadness the world may bring you.
A Merry and Blessed Christmas!
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