"The God Pause Daily Devotional" from The Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States for Saturday, 31 December 2016 “In the Bleak Midwinter” (ELW 294, verse 1)

"The God Pause Daily Devotional" from The Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States for Saturday, 31 December 2016 “In the Bleak Midwinter” (ELW 294, verse 1)
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“In the Bleak Midwinter” (ELW 294, verse 1)
1, In the bleak midwinter,
frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron,
water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow,
snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter,
long ago.
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Because I live in California, I don't experience winter the way it is described in this verse. It also seems unlikely either that the holy family experienced this kind of winter either when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. However, it does seem appropriate to think about the unlikeliness of God becoming human in the form of a poor helpless baby--just about as unlikely as a heat wave in the middle of the bleak midwinter. And yet, with God the impossible becomes possible. The birth of Jesus represents the kind of hope that warms even an earth that stood "hard as iron, water like a stone." In Jesus God's justice breaks into the world and it doesn't look like our justice. Instead Jesus means freedom for the oppressed and healing for the broken. He accomplishes these tasks in the most unexpected of ways--through his death on a cross and the surprise of his resurrection.
Lord of our hearts, we pray that your love would warm us to one another, especially those who are different from ourselves. Help us to see your face in the stranger, the outcast, the oppressed and the broken. In Jesus' name we pray.Amen.
Sarah Sumner-Eisenbraun, '07
Associate and Campus Pastor, Salem Lutheran Church and School, Glendale, Calif.
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