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Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”
NL Daily Devotion for Saturday, December 24, 2022
by Dr. Kimberly Leetch, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: The success of God’s plan would rest on its cultivation on the ground level of society.
Having status and money meant having food, shelter, servants, power, and influence. At a time when social and political status meant everything, God did an unexpected thing. God sent a baby to an unmarried, nomadic young girl. God’s angels spread the news to the working class in a common town.
Centuries prior, God sent Moses to save the people. Moses was raised in the palace of Pharaoh. He had education, money, and resources. He did save God’s people. But that liberation didn’t last. Eventually God’s people would be conquered again—more than once. It turns out bringing a savior into the stratosphere of power wasn’t a lasting solution.
This time God would do it differently. God would send the savior to the bottom, rather the top. God would speak directly with the people God had come to save. God’s plan was to deliver them not only from Rome, but from sin and death. To accomplish a dramatically different result, God performed a dramatically different action.
As with many good things, it would take time to nurture and cultivate this dramatically different thing. God would grow up among God’s people, speak their language, eat their food, suffer the normal bumps and bruises, receive educational instruction, and attend ceremonies. God couldn’t have accomplished what God did with money or power. God did it by engaging the imaginations and skills of the people God had come to save. God took God’s plan to the grassroots and let it unfold as it would.
