I saw this little image of the Nativity yesterday and it started me thinking. It is kind of like a pictogram, or a Chinese written word. It has all the basics of the scene in a compact version. The idea is transmitted in a sort of shorthand.

It shows Mary and Joseph with Jesus in the stable. It is a humble place, nothing fancy. It was probably drafty and simply put together. It wasn’t meant to be a holy place, but it became one.

Isn’t this like us?

The stable is our bodies, while our souls are inside. We are lit by the light of God.

God in us is the same as that image – Jesus being born in a stable.

Be that image. Let your body be that stable. Let it be that humble, worn, unexpected place where God gets in and makes everything different.

Nothing was the same after that moment.

God shows up in the most unexpected, unadorned, unusual ways. God shows up in the muck and mess of our daily lives. We don’t have to be special for God to come to us. We already are special. God loves us as we are – God made us this way.