A joyful journey’s end: Read Matt 2:8-12
Contemplation
We go back out into the freezing night with the strange men. There is the star they saw. After days of travelling, we reach…where? A small town, Bethlehem it’s called, and a small building. Inside, we smell people and animals. It’s warm and stuffy. Doesn’t seem like a spot for a king, but the strange men are thrilled. This is it – the place they’ve been travelling to for months! As we get used to the dark, we find a little family. Mary, Joseph and a tiny baby – still not awake most of the time. But still…even though he’s asleep, there’s something about the little baby that fills the room.
Time seems to stop, and I sense … no, the whole world seems to sense… being …. at home with this little baby, still too young to know who or where he is. The strange men fall to their knees. Suddenly, the little room is full of senses: the glitter of precious gold, the smell of incense and ointments. But…somehow, the wise men have picked up the wrongness of their earlier meeting. They leave for home in secret and don’t go and see Herod on the way home as they had promised.
Where do my journeys end?
Where is Jesus around me?
Is he obvious? Hidden?
Are there senses of unease in the meetings I have had? Senses that God is absent – or not present as I thought? Why? Can I invite God in?