Little hidden clues
The Christmas story carries more than a single reading can lift. Here small signs gather that are easy to read past, and that make everything open up once more, once you have seen them.
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The House of Bread
Bethlehem, translated, means “House of Bread,” Beth-Lechem. In this house was born the one who would later say: “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35). And he was laid not in a bed but in a feeding trough, in the place where the food lies, the food one lives on. The Bread of Life,…
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The Swaddling Cloths as a Sign
The angel gives the shepherds a sign of recognition: “a child wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12). To ordinary ears a touching detail. To these shepherds, an announcement in their own language. On the fields around Bethlehem lambs were tended, and whoever wanted to protect newborn, especially pure lambs wrapped them…
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The Whole of Heaven for a Handful
When it happened, it was not one angel who sang, but “the multitude of the heavenly host” (Luke 2:13). The greatest choir in world history, and the audience: a few shepherds by the fire. Heaven sends its mightiest announcement to the fewest listeners. Because it mattered that precisely these men, who could recognize a pure…
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God Learned
A sentence you get caught on: “Although he was the Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). The one who knows everything learns. Not because he lacked knowledge, but because he had never lived through being human from the inside. Only when he became one himself did he know it the way…