Pratt: Do not over-simplify the Christmas story
Red-gold stillness bathes the sky at last light as the sun tips below the curve of evening, behind an aging row of evergreen trees. This western windbreak is totally still, a pause that extends to the now bare branches of yard trees near the house.
It’s as if all Nature pauses, awaiting the darkness of night. Not even soft birdsong breaks the silence of this late fall evening as winter prepares to open the Northern gate on the Plains.
Not a dry leaf flutters in the backyard trees, whether still attached to the tree or lying as cover on the backyard grass. The orange-red sky glow is so beautiful that I pause to open the draperies wider. Putting clean sheets on the bed can wait.
I reach for the camera, the one luxury I really appreciate about today’s telephone technology. I have more skyscapes, morning and evening, than pictures of people.
My neighbor’s cattle across the road mosey right up to the fence as they begin their day grazing. The herd gathers again just before sunset to say goodnight before going to drink water and sleep at the other end of the pasture.
I noted just after sunrise a few days ago that the new calves have a herd member on guard duty as the season’s newborns begin their survival schooling away from Mom’s side. First it was one calf and then another that awakened, popped up from its grassy bed and started its trek back to the herd (conjecture on my part). I wonder if the cows take turns with this chore.
Life can quickly turn tragic even for domestic animals, what with coyotes and other hungry predators looking for a meal. Sometimes I think as brutal as life can seem for both domestic and wildlife, the beasts of the fields are more to be envied than humankind.
Whether nature breathes with joy or dread at the coming night, I cannot say, as I turn again to wrestle the fitted sheet on the bed after the sun sinks below the horizon as clouds give way from blazing, glorious reds, orange pink to purples and gray shades.
Ever so gently, the evening clouds give up their color, moving slowly into the blackness of on-coming night and its gift of rest wherever peace reigns.
Yet across the World, where day is dawning as we sleep, terror reigns. Rockets and other weapons of destruction are launched by those intent on destroying one another by any means possible. Unfortunately, this reality is ever with humankind, even those who study the ancient prophets of biblical renown such as Isaiah and Jeremiah.
Not only can we trace the truth of the prophetic biblical words, watch it continue to unfold around the world. The Christmas message of a Messiah is a watershed moment in the historic stories of the cosmic battle between good and evil. Humanity is the prize and choice of redemption the result.
Just as the skies show us incredible beauty, they also may bring great destruction such as deadly weather events such as described often in the daily news around the world. But the saddest of all is still the determination of humans to harm or destroy one another.
Do not over-simplify the Christmas story because it also points to Easter, the day of resurrection. No doubt, the gifts of the mysterious Magi, the wise men from the East who supplied the financial means to save the infant. He would pay the price to protect humanity through a sacrificial love that we yet fail to fully understand – the idea of “God with us” experiencing in the flesh the joy and pain, in essence the sunrises and sunsets of our humanity, in order to preserve our heavenly future.
Beth Pratt retired as religion editor from the Avalanche-Journal after 25 years. You can email her at beth.pratt@cheerful.com.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Pratt: Do not over-simplify the Christmas story
