Whenever I read the Bible and think about the cast of characters I find on almost every page, I realize that there is hope for me; there is hope for all of us. If the truth were told, it is a motley bunch that God chose to be his representatives in this world, to speak God’s word to the world, to help bring about the salvation of the world. Almost every person we encounter in scripture, if not every single one of them, is flawed, and some rather mightily flawed!
The truth of the matter is that no one is perfect; we are all flawed. The further truth is that God so often uses those very flaws to accomplish God’s work. My suspicion is that we often take our gifts for granted but are well acquainted with our shortcomings. We work on those failings. Sometimes we work very hard on them. And so often it is overcoming those things which we consider deficiencies by concentrating on them that we tend to shine.
In the Christmas story everyone involved seemed to be flawed in one way or another. Neither Mary nor Joseph would have ever considered themselves capable or worthy to become the parents of such a child. They must have worked every day, worked hard every day to be the very best of parents. They may have done so in fear and trembling because of their responsibility, but they did.
The shepherds, of course, were at the lowest end of the respectability scale in society. Their smell was a reminder of their low esteem and probably helped keep their self-esteem even lower. But that did not prevent them from becoming the first to give honor and pay respects to their Savior.
The Wisemen somehow knew they did not have all the answers even though others looked up to them as bastions of wisdom and knowledge. They came looking to find true wisdom, even Truth Himself.
All the others in the cast of characters in this story were ordinary human beings, from the inn keeper who helped in the best and probably only way he could by offering them at least a warm place to stay for the night; to Herod who was a living reminder that selfishness always gets in the way of doing what is good and right, to anyone else who happened upon the birth. Each and everyone was a flawed human being.
All of us would have fit right in somewhere. We would be no better or no worse than anyone else. The baby we would be seeing in that manger came to give us what we all always need: hope. Because of his life and death and resurrection we all have hope; we all have the ability to overcome our weaknesses and failings and sins and become, in our own way, instruments of salvation. We do that by telling the Christmas story through our very lives.
May this Advent Season be a reminder that God uses us to be today's heralds of God's hope for the world in Jesus.
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