From Manger to Messiah
Soul Snack 212/10 ... A Stable Faith!
Jesus was born in a stable and John the baptist was groomed in the desert! Yet, inhospitable places to humans were the rich soil for eternity!
Into the contemporary religious desert, and the arid faith of the Pharisees an infant would introduce a fresh faith that brought water and not weeds.
This new faith would produce a good faith -- grace would replace greed and love would replace legalism. From the manger would rise the Messiah.
(Sadly for another two millennia the wrestle of religion has remained between suffocating dry rules and a living vibrant grace.)
The murderous malevolence that surrounded this infant's birth would also consume His life.
His parched throat of tormented terror would gasp final words of grace across the assembled throng -
Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Lk 23:34
Misunderstood he died, and mistaken by most He rose again.
From the stable came the wealth of grace and the replacement of rule with relationship.
Arid pharasaism was to be watered with the blood of heaven, for in that stable slept He who would bring the richest of fare, the Prince of Peace.