Word for Word

Blessings on you all as the Christmas Season is here, and in our part of Iowa snow will soon claim us all. However, it was very different in balmy Bethlehem as well as my own Oakland hometown.
No chilly open tables here, either and no mama will give birth in a barn. So, yes, Christmas comes to different places and climates in different ages, but the Holy Babe is still as alive here in Iowa as He was 20 centuries ago in old Israel.
I’ve even been there - looking inside of the Bethlehem stable, even as I enjoy smiling at cows in our Iowa barns. So, whether we still see the Baby Jesus in a bed of straw in that Bethlehem stable with Mary close by or our Holy newborn in a bassinet in our nice hospital along with a rested up Mother Mary, we need to remember that He is still the Son of God, the long-awaited Messiah, to each generation through the ages.
So! Do welcome and love that Holy newborn and even imagine yourself back there in Bethlehem with that babe still wrapped in swaddling clothes. Many years from the Christ of the Cross and the Messiah we worship today.

Rev. Laura Odegard
United Methodist Minister, retired