Last week I was standing in the line at the customer service desk in Walmart. There were several people in the line ahead of me an I noticed how frustrated some of them were. There was just one clerk and like the others I kept looking at my watch. It is about this time of year that people become more frantic. The holiday season puts additional pressure on us. It’s not joy and peace you see in the faces of people but despair and chaos. What we all need is a bit of solitude and peace. We need a Bethlehem moment.
Consider Elizabeth. Suddenly, in her old age, she is pregnant and finds herself soon to take on the exhaustive duties of motherhood. Imagine her overwhelmed feelings of anxiety. How could she do it? Recently we heard that a 63 year old woman just had a baby. This is an age when most people retire. Can you imagine her feelings of desperation?
Elizabeth was not alone. There was also Mary. Mary was young and poor and anticipating her future role as wife to Joseph. Her life also meets with additional strain as she finds herself pregnant and the awesome news that the child she carries is none other than the son of God. And you think you have problems. Mary does not panic or run. Nor does she get upset or become depressed. Instead, she has a Bethlehem moment.
Her moment comes in the form of a blessing. Elizabeth acknowledges her condition which liberates Mary from her personal experience. What Mary finds in Elizabeth is one who not only understands but shares her experience.
When we receive a blessing in the midst of life’s struggles we receive a Bethlehem moment. God reaches through layers of pressure, despair and fear with a quiet calm. While standing in line at Walmart feeling hurried and frustrated, a woman in front of me, with a whole shopping cart of items to be returned and three small children tugging on her coat, decided to leave and come back later. My anxiety suddenly diminished as she departed. The line became shorter and what seemed like an all-day affair turned into a 5-minute wait.
Blessings come in many forms. It could be someone like Elizabeth who "walks in our shoes". It could be a friend or some small break. Bethlehem moments happen all around us but when our lives are so filled with chaos and misery we miss them.
Mary did not miss hers. In fact she responded to her blessing in a beautiful and profound way. She opened her life to the divine presence of God with an outpouring of joy and praise. Mary’s words of praise or the "Magnificat", was an example of both beauty and inspiration. She completely trusts in God with sincere faith.
There is no time in life, no matter how messy, how filled with turmoil, that God cannot break through and give us a blessing. In other words, God wants us to be willing to let the Spirit do great things for us.
We are about to celebrate the world’s best known Bethlehem moment, once again celebrating the presence of a savior who comes to us in a stable. If God could breakthrough then God can breakthrough today. Our lives may be busy, our lives may be overwhelmed with problems, our society plagued with sin and unfaithfulness. There is no reason to panic. God can still bless us with Bethlehem moments.
Sometimes a blessing can be a life changing event. For example, Faye Kellerman tells of a blessing that changed her career. She was a graduate of UCLA Dental School and about to begin a career in dentistry. But, she never filled the first tooth. Instead she became a writer of defective fiction, choosing to explore the human condition rather than oral hygiene.
One particular morning Ms. Kellerman had to take her four-year-old son to the doctor. Meanwhile her mother took the baby to the corner bakery. It was a sunny day in Los Angeles. Grandma and the baby left first and she followed a few minutes later. As she began to drive away she noticed a car slowing and stopping. A young man got out and seemed to be following grandma and the baby. The man appeared to be keeping pace with them and she noticed the car that dropped him off continued on a slow pace a block ahead. She thought perhaps she was being paranoid. She drove close to the car ahead and it drove away. About that time her mother caught up with her and she waved. She felt everything was all right but something nagged at her. She drove around the block and slowed down where her mother and the baby were and waved again. Her mother seemed puzzled. The young man still was keeping pace and she began to worry. She drove around the block one more time. This time she saw her mother lying on the ground and the stroller tipped to one side. She asked if her mother was all right and she replied that both her and the baby were fine. She said, "He took my purse!" She put her family in the car and then gave chase. She caught up to him and told him to drop the purse, but he kept running. She kept screaming at him and began honking the horn. Up ahead were to men. The purse snatcher met up with them and one said, "freeze." The man froze and about the same time Faye pulled over. It turned out that one of the men was an off duty police officer who secured the suspect. Her mother identified him and he was then arrested. The police told her how fortunate she was since it is rare that purse snatchers are apprehended. Most people would not give chase as Ms. Kellerman but she was different. But, justice would not have been served had it not been for the off duty policeman who happened along.
Faye Kellerman chose to see the arrival of the policeman as a blessing. One that contributed to choosing an entirely different career than she had prepared herself for, but one that has been entirely rewarding ever since. This was her Bethlehem moment.
Bethlehem moments happen every day but we don’t always accept them as having anything to do with the presence of God. We just consider ourselves lucky. Mary did not see herself as lucky. Instead she humbled herself and yielded to God’s plan. But why? Was she some super religious person or just in the right place at the right time?
It all goes back to her friend Elizabeth. She was more than a friend to Mary. She totally accepted her in spite of her mysterious pregnancy. What Mary received was total empathy and unconditional love. And that acceptance enabled her to say, "Let it be" and resolve that for whatever reason God had chosen her and she would move forward in faith. Her Bethlehem moment changed her forever.
Dr. Keith Wagner, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Sidney, Ohio