Only with Wonder

In a cave in Bethlehem, the child is born.

Not merely a child, but the Child. The one promised to a waiting world. The one who carries every hope ever spoken and every prayer ever whispered into the dark. He is the Child who was foretold, the Child who Himself is promise, the Child who fulfills all promises.

The world does not stop to take notice. No gates open. No thrones are disturbed. The night continues as it always has, indifferent and quiet. Yet everything has changed. What was distant has drawn near. What was hoped for has arrived.

The Omnipresent chooses a single place. The Infinite accepts measure and boundary. God steps into finitude and does not crush it. He inhabits it. Eternity folds itself into flesh. The Creator must be fed and warmed and protected from the cold. The One who sustains all things allows Himself to be sustained. The hands that shaped the heavens are held still, clenched softly in sleep.

This is not a temporary disguise. This is not a passing visit. God binds Himself to hunger and fatigue, to growth and vulnerability. He accepts the slow unfolding of human life. He consents to time. He allows Himself to be interrupted, misunderstood, ignored. Love does not remain distant. Love enters fully.

The cave is low and poor. Cold rock walls, straw underfoot, the breath of animals in the dark. And yet Heaven has chosen this place. God does not arrives with vulnerability. He entrusts Himself to simple hands, to human hands. To hands that tremble, that are tired, that know fear and tenderness. He places His life within the fragile care of those He has made.

Nothing here is impressive by the world’s measure. There is only nearness. Only presence. Only a God who prefers intimacy to comfort. The poverty of the place is not an obstacle to sanctity. It is the setting God Himself selects.

How are we to respond to such a mystery? We cannot master it. All we can do is kneel in stillness before it. We must allow our hearts and minds to be undone by the limitless God who chose to be limited. To remain before the cave in silence, emptied of certainty, filled only with wonder.


Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God: believe also in me. (St. John 14:1)

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