the second page :: foreshadow

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{to read the first chapter, visit here}

another page now to turn, when books and words show more than we dare to realize. because we get stuck, i think with away in the manger when no one really went to this quiet manger where cattle are lowing and babies don't cry.

because there's more to this than just picture-perfect nativity and glowing mother and oh so proud father and stars and a Star that shine down over this little Kodak moment where someone should have had a camera.

sometimes it seems like they did, but they didn't.

there was blood. there was tears and there was pain. and there was a crying child who lay in a pile of straw, wrapped in strips of clean linen,  because the world who should have opened their doors to Him shut them tight and shouted

no room 

no room 

no room 

a hundred thousand times over until a cave cut into rock was His only place to be born.

and then His only place to lay when the hearts of every Pharisee shut tights and cried

no room 

no room

no room 

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a hundred times over. and they wrapped Him in strips of clean linen -- and they laid Him in that cave to rest. not in life, but in death.

and then there were the seekers. the shepherds and the Magi from every walk of life, coming to behold and kneel with gifts of wealth and gifts of hearts.

 because the shepherds were disciples that came and laid their nothing but praise at His feet, because it was all they had. and a man named Joseph was the Magi who gave his garden and his herbs and his never-used tomb. because that was his honour.

and there was the angel in the sky singing "you will find Him lying in a manger. Emmanuel. Jesus." and the seekers ran to Him after waiting all their lives to find this Messiah, this one to save them, their land and their souls.

and then there was the angel again. who sat this time, no singing or multitudes. just the one. but this one's message was just as full of power, if not more.

this time,

He is NOT HERE.

because He is risen.

so the writer in me finds the foreshadow, finds the promise in the silent night and the holy night and the bright and the calm.

and so as i sing, the tears will fall down my face because there is more than sacred touching earth and life being changed as we know it forever by an innocent child soon to become the darkest with our sin. not His, but ours.

fall on your knees,

oh, hear the angel voices.

oh, night divine.