It’S Time To Begin Our Trip To Bethlehem

In just three weeks we will be kneeling at the manger of the baby Jesus.

If we want to get to the cave-stable in Bethlehem on time, I suggest we pack our bags and get started.

Because we won’t make it to Bethlehem if we think it’s like so much of our usual Christmas gift shopping.

We can’t wait until the last minute, the last day or even the last week.

Spirit preparation is why we have Advent. So we must prepare ourselves for the journey.

Are you ready to pack?

First off, please leave room to bring some new clothes back with you. Paul tells the Colossians that folks wear these clothes after they’ve been baptized into the new life in Christ: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and above all, love (Col. 3:13, 15).

So now we know what to leave room for in our bags when we return from Bethlehem. What should we actually pack to take with us?

Well, I’m sure you will want to pack whatever joy and hope and love you already have with you. They will be wonderful gifts to lay at the foot of the manger, don’t you think?

In fact, my hunch is we will want to take only happy, positive gifts with us. That’s how we try to approach Christmas for our families and friends, isn’t it?

All of the gifts to our children, parents, extended family members and friends try to tell them how much we love them. And perhaps that’s how those gifts should be.

But I suspect there are times when our families and friends need other gifts.

They need to know our love for them is authentic and unconditional. They need gifts from us that reflect whatever transformation might be going on inside of us.

(This is why the journey to Bethlehem may be best now, before we choose those tangible gifts we put under the Christmas tree or mail off sometime this month.)

What I’m saying is this: Perhaps the most important gifts we can bring to the manger-child are not our joys and hopes, but our failures and our despairs.

God knows better than we know ourselves just how incredibly hard it is for us to let go of our carefully guarded, carefully nourished, well-worn bags of resentments and old hurts.

One reason we carry those bags all around with us is we forget there is a place we can set them down.

It isn’t a place where we can pretend those pains don’t exist. Nor is it a place we can visit whenever we want to, so we can wallow in their destructiveness.

Rather, it is a place where our fears and hurts can be transformed into something that will spiritually nourish us on a daily basis. The place I speak of is the manger at Bethlehem.

How might they be transformed?

To begin with, whatever you leave at the manger, you can return home confident that God returns with you.

As you shed your coat of fears, as you peel off the undergarments of inability or unwillingness to forgive another person for something, you will find those new clothes Paul told the Colossians about.

As you put them on, a new attitude will take up residence in your heart.

You may be more able to see that person has fears as deep and distressing to him as yours are to you. You may even find the courage to sit down with that person to engage in honest, compassionate listening to each other’s hearts.

If you are able to leave your resentments and fears at the manger, you won’t be returning from Bethlehem merely with souvenir trinkets but with lasting treasures.

Treasures you can gently, grace-fully share with whomever you have in your heart as you packed for Bethlehem.