Obscurity

It's over.  Christmas 2013 that is.  Those last cards that never got sent now seem obsolete, good intentions squelched by the passing of Dec. 25.  Stores are on to Valentine's Day, jingle and trappings of Christmas half price . . .  no longer valuable. 

And Jesus has fled to Egypt waiting for an evil king to die.  Waiting in obscurity.

Those who heard the shepherds run through town and mountain proclaiming Jesus' birth, what did they think?  Okay, if your story is true, where is He now?   Rumors fade while life rushes on.


























But it was no hearsay.  The Messiah had indeed, come.

Later, with King Herod dead, the threat to Jesus' life was gone . . . for the moment.

 "This is your chance, Jesus!  Show yourself to the world.  Let them know who you are," is what we would have urged had we been there.

But Jesus remained silent, choosing Nazareth, a speck of a town, only a pinprick on the map, to be his home.  Patient through childhood, He waited, identifying with our weakness . . . 30 years of growing in common normality.  Thirty years!  Scarcely no one saw and no one heard.   Even fewer believed.
 

If we had been in Jesus' shoes, would we have done the same?  I think not.  Our craving for limelight, this obsession with ourselves, continues to push toward the foreground.  We would have announced our status through social network, or what have you, and made certain to procure a worldwide following.

I speak of myself, ashamed at how easily I make life all about me, rather than the glory of God. 

My earnest desire for the new year, is that He, Jesus, might increase and I decrease. (John 3:30)

There is something to say for the dailies, for growing up, for unseen responsibilities carried out in the background.   Simple obedience.  Why should I care who knows, so long as before God I live as He requires . . . "to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God."  (Micah 6:8)

 

 

 The servant is not above His Master.