an unwed, pregant teenage girl

i just ran across ben bell's CHRISTmas card for his church's congregation and i think it is amazing. in my opinion it really conveys what CHRISTmas must have been like. mary would have been view by the powerful people of her time as just another insignificant statistic and an indicator of why the hebrew race was below them. they would not have viewed her pregnancy as anything of importance. they would not have cared at all what was happening with her, joseph, or her unborn child.

you know that joseph and mary would have had to have been scared to death and confused by GOD's plan. of course, the incarnation freaks all of us out so it should have done the same thing to the first two humans to experience. "GOD with us" is a scary concept. "GOD for us" would be so much easier for us to handle. then we would just have a power that was helping us do the things we wanted to do. "GOD with us", the incarnation, means relating with GOD, HE becomes a part of our lives and we become a part of HIS.

the incarnation scares the crap out of me. truthfully GOD scares the crap out of me. HE is so completely "other" and mysterious. HE is someone that i can not define and i can not control. yet, i am constantly drawn to HIS "otherness". i long to be engulfed by HIS mystery and experience the fear that "otherness" produces. this is why HE is the answer to life.