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ISAIAH 9:2-7

The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
    on them light has shined.
³ You have multiplied exultation;
    you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
    as with joy at the harvest,
    as people exult when dividing plunder.
⁴ For the yoke of their burden
    and the bar across their shoulders,
    the rod of their oppressor,
    you have broken as on the day of Midian.
⁵ For all the boots of the tramping warriors
    and all the garments rolled in blood
    shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
⁶ For a child has been born for us,
    a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders,
    and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷ Great will be his authority,
    and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
    He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
    from this time onward and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Looking in at the grotto, surrounded by a lot of people from all over, I thought, "Sure, why not, it's grubby enough, it's ordinary enough, this could be it. And if it isn't, well, it's as good a place as any in this city—this city under oppression as it seemingly always has been."

I'm referring to Bethlehem and my experience almost forty years ago, visiting the Church of the Holy Nativity and the very spot, according to tradition, where Mary bedded down and, through the ordeal that is human reproduction, birthed the most consequential human being to have wandered the continents of this planet.

I didn't say the smartest, the most charismatic, the strongest or most attractive, or even the most creative. Just the most consequential.

I was entirely unimpressed as a young man—a theologically uninformed young man—when I paused briefly before the spot and then was relentlessly and inexorably pushed forward and away by the surging crowd and the urgings of the officials.

Indeed at every place in my three months in Israel/Palestine, I was underwhelmed—underwhelmed by the dust and grime of all the holy sites, so ordinary, I came to see in retrospect that they actually "got it."

They actually captured how it is that God glories in ordinary, grotto humans, and by glorying in the ordinary, highlights how everything about us is truly extraordinary.