The Human Face at the Manger

This morning I attended worship at Faith UMC in Grain Valley. It was a lovely service; Dave Hackett preached on the difference between happiness, which is a good thing, and joy an eternal thing. I had a moment of joy when my eye wondered from Dave to the altar, beautifully arrayed in poinsettias. You can see in the picture how pretty the altar area is. When I glanced at it during the sermon, what I saw was slightly different than what you see here. There was something else Do you see that spot above the poinsettia that is behind Joseph's head? In that blank spot there, when I looked, there was a human, real face. The face of Riley, the drummer who was sitting on the floor by his drum set, which you can not see in the picture. (I talked to Riley after the service to ask if I might talk about this experience in the blog this evening by the way :-} Riley is a high schooler who has been playing drums at the church about a year. I have heard him play several times before and his playing enhances both the praise songs and the hymns.

However, it was a bit startling to see his face there, overlooking the manger scene. It made me so aware again that even though these are white statues, the persons depicted here were human beings, not icons or otherworldly creatures who knelt there at the baby. It always amazes me that those who manufacture these nativity scenes always have Mary up and kneeling and folding her hands and looking so sweet, when she just delivered a baby maybe a few hours, if that, before this scene. I'll let you in on a little secret---she probably wasn't kneeling like this---or if she tried it, she probably groaned for a minute and laid back down. Riley's face there brought to light in a most wondrous way, that even though our manger scenes are so beautiful, as this one is, it was really human beings that were there---Mary, perhaps not much younger than Riley, and Joseph, who we know had some questions about all this, but who gave in to the power of the Holy Spirit to lead him to Bethlehem and to celebration with Mary at the birth of the Emmanuel.

This week I want to follow the trip of Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem. And to think some here about what the trip might have been like, and to perhaps, if I can be so bold, to really put a human face on these two who loved each other, and who were entrusted with this baby boy who became the Savior of the world. I hope to be made more human myself for the journey.