It's now a very busy time of year for many people. Some of us are challenged for time to accomplish our tasks in making Christmas special for church, for family, loved ones, and strangers, too.

In the Lukan narrative he declares that Mary and Joseph were pressed to move to another town for a census requirement. In other words, if it's not one thing, it's another --and it has always been that way! Can you believe it? While almost ready to deliver her firstborn child the poor woman has to endure a trip to Bethlehem! This is not fun! Perhaps we miss that element of the story. Traveling by donkey when nine months pregnant could even be hazardous to mother and child! No mid-wife is spoken of, no help given except we all imagine this must have been the easiest of births, right?

I'd like us to imagine the other side of things, of being tired, stressed, hungry, thirsty, worried, --worn. Sound familiar? Actually, that is the state of the world, then and now, the world that the Christ comes to. 

Christmas could be an even more powerful vision for us, pregnant with other meanings, if we would allow ourselves to see further and deeper than the familiar story of God with us.  It's amazing what this story of love has come to represent --astonishing how it has been co-opted, relegated and misunderstood.  Mary above is dozzing off --the angels are watching out for her like the images we love of a handy guardian angel. But the story is one of real danger beginning with birth and all sorts of hazards common to you and me. Jesus is born to us --like us --for us! God with us!