Mtr Mary Trainor

We're looking for The King, the new Messiah.
We're following the star, shining brighter.
Old man, won't you help us if you can?
He shook his head, but he pointed his hand  …*

Dear friend,

You know this, I am sure: There is pain that is almost pleasant, like the sore tooth you keep pushing on with your tongue. Or those moments we call bittersweet, because they are at once bitter and sweet, pleasant and unpleasant at the same time.

That describes nearly every Christmas Eve that I can remember. Sure, there’s the joy and the gift-giving and visits with family and friends, and often too much to eat. We sing carols about silent nights and a newborn king. It would almost be rude to sound a sour note. And yet  …

Events like these crash into Gospel accounts of unwelcome, of a winter world where not everyone is warm, of an agrarian world where not everyone has enough to eat.

There's a new kid in town and he's lying in a manger down the road  …

I can get misdirected by painful contrasts between the world we live in, and the world we hope for on Christmas Eve, with its promise of “more” and “better,” the promise of an end to bleak midwinters.

And …like a tongue probing a sore tooth, I come to this place every year. And every year I am caught somewhat off guard by feelings of sadness, thinking that I should have outgrown this by now, I should be merrier and happier as we approach the day that hope was born.

There's a new kid in town but he's just another baby I suppose. Heaven knows  …

That’s the way it seems to be with me and the Christ child. I meet him every year, about this time, after first wondering and worrying about the world he was born into, the one I was born into, wondering and worrying as to whether we mere mortals are capable of setting things straight. And this is the conclusion I am happy to reach every Christmas Eve: We mortals are not capable on our own to set all the wrong things right in this world. But…God provides strength, and love, and hope, and courage, and patience, and impatience, and passion--all by means of a fragile baby delivered a couple of thousand years ago among smelly barn animals. From that unlikely beginning, the King of Kings was born. We are not left to wander this old world by ourselves.

There's a new kid in town, Here in Bethlehem.

Mtr Mary

There’s a new kid in town, lyrics by  Don Cook, Curly Putman, Keith Whitley
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