To Bethlehem through Samaria

In a cold winter the warmth of the sun is a very consoling experience. The Scripture says that the Sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. 

We look for healing and strength. Healing includes cleansing, medication, bandaging, and resting.

We too need a process of healing, and Jesus assures: "I will come myself and cure him."

He came to us to console, strengthen and give us rest. 

Re-visioning and re-forming a Bethlehem in our societies, is to experience the life that he enabled us to live. So if he came as someone external to us, now he longs to grow as someone among us who make up and completes his body.

Christ would be proud of his body that acknowledges if there are injuries. But that which rejects a need for healing adds pain for Christ. At times it could be a defective member, but the worst damage is done when the body says: "This is how it has to be." It would be like one who suffers toothache, hides it and says that it is perfect; or like one who is reluctant to change his cloths according to the changing climate as one travels. True that the body suffers.

Just like the feeble child in Bethlehem is cared by many in Bethlehem, we also may need many for our own healing. Let us not forget that an Israelite was brought to healing by a Samaritan. 

Today's Samaritans, - atheists, scientists, other religions... -  do take us to the inn of healing. We regain our strength and begin to feel the wholeness. There if we can see our faces, we could see the glory of reliving.

The glory of the Lord

will be a canopy and a tent

to give shade by day from the heat,

refuge and shelter from the storm and the rain.

Let us Go to God's House

We are at the beginning of advent, ready to welcome the Saviour. When the Messiah comes, he will teach everything. The Messiah will teach us the ways of God, how to enter the temple and worship God in truth and spirit.

Sign of a divine presence or  a promise was a place for sacrifice and worship. Society organised itself, and preserved itself by defining how the worship should be. The idea of a temple was taking many changes in the views of believers, and it was shaping them too. Temple too was constructed and well adorned. In the temple we found our pride.

Destroy the temple, but continue the worship! How? 

When society was scattered they waited for a powerful king to come and redeem them. A mere king would not be sufficient because for our true life the saviour should be able to relate with God. Since he needs to be tender at heart with his people he also need to be a shepherd to the people. 

Only this shepherd can tell of the true temple and sacrifice. Then he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths. When temple fell to the ground people said that they had no temple, no priest, no sacrifice. A humble contrite heart that would be an acceptable sacrifice; that would be the temple.

we see all these - kings, priests and shepherds - at the manger of Bethlehem, giving a call to worship there at the manger.

Come let us go to God's house, our own hearts!

Speaking of the heart may sound feeble,tender and simple. Yet it adds a struggle since it asks for responsibility for oneself and others. Social constructs to stabilise the meaningful life of  people form laws, religions, customs and traditions. They provide a collective identity. Following such functions may be very solemn and rewarding. But they leave us torn because they act on building fear,solidifying guilt,and for the worse by narrowing the abundance of heart to its limited picture of god

. Can these renew itself to take this struggle to be responsible; to find the liberative and uniting function of theirs, rather than binding and dividing. Otherwise these constructs - religions, customs and traditions - will remain a wolf to the humble manger at Bethlehem.