Imago Dei

One of the things I like best about this time of the year is the chance to glimpse of the image of God in people. It is there in the careful planning and sheer joy of the parent who calculates how to get the basketball goal up, cemented in the ground before morning without the hopeful child waking. It is there, too, in the ornaments on the tree, some reflecting the joys and sometimes sadness of Christmases past, some telling the story of a creator who chose to reveal himself to his creation through one who began life in a manger and then worked with his hands, embraced the outcasts of society and died on a cross. It is there in gatherings of family and friends, and it will be there in the faces of people at church tonight-some joyful because a son or daughter serving in the military are safe, or better yet, home, some grieving the loss of a loved one since last Christmas, some fearful that their job will not last the new year, some newly in love, some sad for love lost-but all there, together in a caring community of faith. And, it will be there in the people I pass on the way to the church, some of whom will, like the baby Jesus, have no where to lay their heads tonight but may find refuge because faith framed with both hope and humility compels us to do unto the least, the last and the lost as we would to God. In the coming year, may we all become innkeepers.

Merry Christmas!

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