Strike A Blow

A very dignified, austere European theologian always began his lecture series on the “Incarnation” with the same line. He would look out at his audience and say, “I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony. I can see that it is wonderful to be here but I hardly know where to begin.” In today’s Gospel Lesson, King Herod demands “detailed information about the child” Jesus. Two thousand years later people all around us want “detailed information about the Child Jesus” and our Christian duty is to meet that demand. Whether or not we succeed depends largely on knowing where to begin. Unlike the mosquito in the nudist colony, we must know where to begin.

It begins with our understanding that the great Lord God, from the very onset of time, among all peoples and in all places, has been acting in a Christly way. Or, as the New Testament would say, has been acting in the Christ Spirit. “In the beginning was the…