The Fifteenth Day of Advent
Luke 2:16-20New International Version (NIV)
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
“…which were just as they had been told.” Someone has remarked that joy is a sense of well-being that saturates the soul–a conviction that God will hear every cry, right every wrong, heal every wound–even though the present world stings us with sorrow. The shepherds praised and glorified God, because in the face of Jesus they saw the future despite the present. They now knew that God would do all he said he would do. As Julian of Norwich wrote long ago using words she heard in a vision of Christ, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” The name for such confidence is joy. The Bible tells us what the shepherds saw, so that we, too, might see the future. The world is not alright now, not by a long shot. But it will be. It will be.
Bryan Richardson
