Oh Holy Spirit descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there thy cheerful beams. St. AugustineMy family had horses when I was growing up, and so I spent a good bit of time in a barn. I think it is a shame that so few of us in our urban culture spend regular time in a barn. In stories, Christmas stories in particular, barns are charming rustic places filled with light, snowy white sheep and the smell of sweet hay.
Real barns aren't like that unless they are empty, or have been thoroughly cleaned withing the past 15 minutes. Barns are shadowy, dusty, muddy, mucky places. They smell like manure and animal flesh.
The smell of manure, whether it is fresh and steaming or has been sitting around in piles for a while turning into fertilizer, isn't really pleasant, at least it isn't pleasant for people whose noses are used to the stink.
More often than not, this world in general, and many individual lives being lived in it, look and smell like a neglected barn.
The place where the holy God dwells is, by contrast, dazzlingly beautiful, brilliantly bright and absolutely pure. The miracle of Christmas is that the pure, brilliant, holy light of heaven, in the person of the son of God himself, invaded the stinking darkness of the stable and transformed it.
That is what I celebrate during this season. I celebrate that God himself not only invaded a stable centuries ago with his light, but also, miraculously invaded the stinking stable of my life and of my very soul with his holy light and transformed it into the dwelling place of God himself.
The People who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. Isa 9:2
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