Life is good, for many reasons. I mean, I'm home with my parents (more family to come later), I'm not worried about classes right now, I bought a car, and I could easily go on. Probably the most exciting thing for me on the horizon is that I was given the opportunity to go to Cambodia this January with Calvin College. I will be spending three and a half weeks with a group of 25 or so other college students spending time learning about the culture and lifestyle of Cambodia. I'm stoked. And I just realized earlier this morning that I leave in a mere ten days. Crazy. I should probably figure out what/how I need to pack fairly soon. Anyways, that's what's big in my life. You can expect some blogs from while I'm there (I should be able to find some internet). There's also a "group blog" for the entire trip that will be updated by various people on the trip. You can find that link right here.
Anways, here's the Christmas portion of the post. My brother wrote this a few years ago (5 or more), and I like it. So, this is it, as he wrote it. Enjoy.
The Christmas story is really incredible if you think about it. Take Mary, for instance. She gets visited by an angel. Now, think of all images of angels that come to your mind. Little naked babies with wings, blonde women with wings, blonde men with wings, and so on, right? Now throw those ideas away. Angels are obviously much more awe-inspiring than that. They're downright fearsome. Why else would the first words every angel in the Bible says be "Do not be afraid."? Then, this angel tells her she's going to be pregnant. According to most Bible scholars, Mary was somewhere between 14 and 16. That's younger than most of you female readers out there are. Now all of you women reading this, imagine telling your parents that you're pregnant, and on top of that, trying to convince them that God got you pregnant. What are the chances that they'll actually believe you? I'm thinking probably not good.
Then there's Joseph. Put yourself in his place. You are engaged, but you find out that you're fiance is pregnant. You know for a fact that you didn't make her pregnant. She tells you that it's God's fault. Then you have a dream that tells you she's telling you the truth. I'd have a very hard time believing a dream over everything I've learned about where babies come from. Especially since most of my dreams don't make sense.
Finally, there's the trip to Bethlehem. Most movies, TV shows, paintings, and such show Joseph leading a donkey that's carrying Mary. Back in those times, owning a donkey was about as rare as a Mercedes is now. There is no way that a newlywed poor carpenter would have the money to own a donkey. (We know that Joseph was poor based on the offering he gave at Jesus' temple dedication) So, Mary, who was at least 8-9 months pregnant, had to make a 4-7 day, just over 70 mile trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Then there was the stable. If you've seen nativity scenes, especially in paintings, the stable is a large wooden building that is clean and has straw covering the floor and a cute little manger and it's usually full of lots of smiling animals. That's bad enough, but often included in these animals are horses and donkeys, and I've already mentioned how rare donkeys were, and horses were even harder to come by than that. The worst I've seen however, is a nativity puzzle that had a pig in the stable (pigs were unclean animals). But on to the main point. This stable was not made of wood. There is hardly any wood in Israel, so they wouldn't waste it on a stinking barn. And stables certainly weren't clean. They were usually dark caves that were full of goat crap. The manger was usually a stone that could hold some water for the sheep to drink.
-Sam Baker
(Cue my addition. I feel like he cut it two sentences short)
I mean, really, think on that. It's a stone trough, probably nothing in it, except for dampness. Not exactly the straw filled manger we tend to think of. Food for thought.
Merry Christmas to you all. Don't lose sight of the things that really matter (there are two links there. click on both of them, you won't be sorry because they're both way better written than this).
(Cue my addition. I feel like he cut it two sentences short)
I mean, really, think on that. It's a stone trough, probably nothing in it, except for dampness. Not exactly the straw filled manger we tend to think of. Food for thought.
Merry Christmas to you all. Don't lose sight of the things that really matter (there are two links there. click on both of them, you won't be sorry because they're both way better written than this).
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