The gifts we are given
From our order of worship this morning:
The Nativity
Among the oxen (like an ox I’m slow)
I see a glory in the stable grow
Which, with the ox’s dullness might at length
Give me an ox’s strength.
Among the asses (stubborn I as they)
I see my Saviour where I looked for hay;
So may my beastlike folly learn at least
The patience of a beast.
Among the sheep (I like a sheep have strayed)
I watch the manger where my Lord is laid;
Oh that my baa-ing nature would win thence
Some woolly innocence!
– C. S. Lewis
The poem above by C.S. Lewis paints a portrait in which the power of Christmas begins in the Christ child, a “glory in the stable” that is perceived through the lens of the animals. He watches from their perspective, “among the donkeys” who find a Child where they sought hay. He hopes to receive the grace to become (at least) like those animals, who wait so patiently in the stable for a turn at the manger. At Christmas, we long to receive the grace that enters into the world through Christ’s incarnation; it is not the gifts that we can give, but rather the gifts we are given, which make our remembrance of Christmas truly Christian.
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