Let the Stable Still Astonish

Let the Stable Still Astonish: A Repost

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I’ve posted this on numerous social media platforms (and even here at least once), but this one deserves another repost because it so beautifully captures the heart of the Advent and Christmas season.

In all the hustle and bustle and rushing about, it’s good to still our hearts and quiet our souls to reflect on the miracle wrought in a stable so long ago:

“Let the stable still astonish:
Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain, 
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said: ‘Yes,
Let the God of all the heavens and earth
Be born here, in this place’?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
of our hearts and says, ‘Yes,
let the God of Heaven and Earth
be born here–
in this place'” (Leslie Leyland Fields, Let the Stable Still Astonish).

Christmas In the Eyes of a Child

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“Seeing isn’t believing. Believing is seeing” (from The Santa Clause).

I think the reason so many don’t like Christmas is that they’ve stopped seeing it through the eyes of a child.

Christmas isn’t so much for children as it is for the childlike. I don’t mean the childish who pout every time they don’t get their own way.

I mean the childlike, the ones who never stop believing in good and right and magic and happy endings. The ones who see more than just the physical and still have room for miracles and pixie dust. The ones who still have the ability to be amazed and astonished at life.

Jesus said that anyone who wanted to enter the Kingdom of God must do so as a little child. Whoever really wants to experience all that God is must go back to before the cynicism took root, before disillusionment set in, to when just about anything was possible, because for God, anything IS possible.

So let’s go back to the faith of a child.  Let us once again rediscover the ability to be amazed and astonished by the wonder that is Advent and Christmas and the miracle that made it all possible.

“Let the stable still astonish:
Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said: “Yes,
Let the God of all the heavens and earth
Be born here, in this place”?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
of our hearts and says, “Yes,
let the God of Heaven and Earth
be born here–
in this place”  (Leslie Leyland Fields from Let the Stable Still Astonish).

Let the Stable Still Astonish

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Let the stable still astonish
Straw — dirt floor, dull eyes
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough
Who would have chosen this?

Who would have said ‘Yes,’
‘Let the God of all the heavens
And earth
Be born here, in this place’?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
of our hearts
and says ‘Yes,’
‘Let the God of Heaven and Earth
be born here –
in this place.’ (Leslie Leyland Fields)

I first read this in a Jan Karon book called Light from Heaven (which I highly recommend) and it captivated me. How true it is that the same God who chose to be born and placed in a feeding trough would choose to be born in my heart, a heart darker and fouler than any manger. I don’t say that to say “Woe is me. Feel sorry for me,” but to say that is the human heart apart from Christ,

I love that God could have left the world to stew in its own mess but didn’t. I love that God could have (and probably should have) left me to my own devices to figure a way out of my own self-created disaster, but He didn’t.

The Bible says that while I was yet a sinner (not while I was trying my very best and doing all the Boy Scout duties and living right) Christ died for me. While I was an enemy of God and opposed to everything  He stood for, He became one of us and died for me.

Christmas is where this started. That’s why I love Christmas so much. That and all the festive decorations and gatherings. And food. Let’s not forget all the food.