Divine Encounter #6

New Parents,  Shepherds, Angels, foreign Wise Men, and a Perfect Holy Baby Boy

The Baby had arrived.  The setting was nothing that any young married couple would imagine as the place to begin their life together.  Nor the context into which they would have chosen to bring their first child.  

But the Baby was now cradled in human arms. . . the arms that would protect Him, shelter Him, care for Him, teach Him, and love Him.  

The setting was not what they had envisioned as their new married life had begun in Nazareth.  The dangerous travel to this little village of Bethlehem had not been in their dreams for their future.  The cruel oppression and violence that Rome’s military occupation forced into their daily lives was a constant danger that loomed for every Jewish person …man, woman and child of Israel.  Fear and violence filled the atmosphere.  

Yet, in the small village, a humble shelter for animals now sheltered the new father, mother and the tiny newborn baby boy.  The little family, in a setting of hay and surrounded with animals, cradled in their arms the Baby that God’s Angel had told them would be placed into their care. . . their hearts for the years to come.  They would be the primary ones to give Him human love . . . care . . . kisses . . . affection . . . snuggles, laughter, tenderness, human language, life skills, practical skills, and relational engagement.  They would model to Him human love, respect, humor, sadness,  gratitude, kindness, and joy.   Having been sent to Earth by God, the realities of human life on earth would become experiential through Joseph and Mary.  

Throughout the years his earthly  family experience, Jesus learned the human experience. . . at its best and at its worst.   He would use that experience as he walked through His Life in that Land. . . . the God/Man, sinless, but well experienced with the human realities of Earth.  The humanity that God loved and for whom He was moving forward in His Plan to redeem, now included God in a human form . . . One Whose Destiny was to make a Way for human life to experience  His Spirit living within us.