The Visitor and the Visited

A couple of Sundays ago one of the believers in our meeting shared some thoughts about Jesus' coming to visit us on that first Christmas so long ago.

It started me thinking.

I know we're past Christmas, but Jesus wasn't an infant in Bethlehem only for the duration of that  Christmas night so very long ago.  He was there the next day...and the next...and the next.

I wonder what would have greeted Him when He first arrived...

The hushed silence of holy reverence.  The sweet smell of fresh hay. Precious strains of heavenly singing drifting to His little ears and rocking Him to a quiet sleep.  The gentle glow of a majestic star.  Worshipful shepherds. Gentle animals, quiet "moo"-ing and braying.  Perhaps a lamb kneeling beside the manger.

Not likely.

Instead, what comes to my mind is the scene that greeted me when I visited the slums of Nairobi a few weeks ago...

Poverty.  Filth.  Sickness.  Trash everywhere...in piles, in the nearby river, draped in the bushes beside the river, layered into the dirt and mud.  Open sewage.  Rank smells.

I wasn't there long before part of me was ready to leave.  I loved the people I was meeting, but the atmosphere was...repulsive.

And I wonder if the scene greeting our Savior wasn't a little more like this...

Busy, harsh sounds of a crowded little town full to overflowing with stressed, travel-weary, irritable people and animals...women fussing and chattering.  Babies crying and whining.  Men drinking and laughing.  Shouting.  Fighting.  Probably all night long.

Not the smell of fresh hay, but the smell of fresh (and old) manure.  Musty hay.  Dirty, sweaty, unwashed animals.  Shepherds who had (very obviously) not seen baths in far too long.

But even worse, we can be sure, was the open sewage of SIN that greeted...and surely repulsed...the gentle, holy spirit of our Jesus...

Rank smells of pride and self-seeking.  Stockpiled trash of unforgiven faults and unconfessed bitterness.  Open sewage of sin intentional and unintentional, confessed and unconfessed.  Oozing from every  human heart in the stable, in the inn, in Bethlehem, in Judah, in the world.

Oh, how He loved, and loves, each precious human.  But the filth of sin, each and every offense a direct, rebellious defiance against Him, the Creator and Law-Giver...how it must have grieved and repulsed Him.

And yet His visit wasn't short, like my two or three hours in the slums.  He was there day after day after day after day...until that final day, thirty-three years later, when He actually took that filth of sin upon Himself.

Thank You, my Jesus, for visiting me.

Another parallel jumps out at me, between my visit to the slums and Jesus' visit to this broken world.

In this season of giving gifts, I remember a gift someone gave me while I was in Nairobi--a small, dirty, unremarkable plastic ball.

One of the most precious gifts I've ever been given.

Now, obviously, what is precious to me is not the intrinsic value of that gift.  In fact, I couldn't wait to wash both it and the hand that held it.

Rather, what is precious to me is the heart of the one who gave it.  And who was the giver?

A small boy, one of the many who lived in the slums.  One of many who had nothing.  And out of his "nothing," he gave me a treasure, perhaps the only treasure he had.

I visited him, and he gave me a gift.  A gift so precious to me...because it was precious to him.

My Jesus has visited me in the filth of this world, in the sewage of my sin.  He came, and He stayed until He paved the way for me to join Him in rising out of these "slums."

The shepherds gave what they could.  They left their sheep, their livelihood, to the mercy of the wilds, and rushed on legs young and boyish and legs old and arthritic, through dark fields and busy streets, till they came to that little stable.  There they knelt, and worshiped.  Then they took their worship public, and, oblivious to scorn or disbelief, proclaimed the unbelievable message with joyful confidence.

The wise men gave what they could.  They travelled long, dreary, weary months across desert sands, putting their lives at home on indefinite hold, until they knelt, the regal, the esteemed, before the young Child, born into poverty.

Simeon gave his blessing.  Anna gave her worship.  Mary gave her wondering heart.  Joseph and Mary both gave up their respected reputations.  Another Mary gave a box of perfume.  One named Stephen gave his life, the first of many.

My Jesus visited me.

What gift have I for Him?