Our morning Worship Service today opened with Once in Royal David's City. Its last verse contrasts that humble manger birthplace with Christ's ascended glory - we will see Him but
Not in that poor lowly stable
A reflective knowledge of Middle Eastern housing in the First Century makes our ideas of a stable unlikely - animals were usually kept in the lower room of a house. But never mind that. This card has a stable with a gold roof. Together with some nifty woodwork we have a stable that might just have been the best-looking building in Bethlehem. It's so posh that the cow has been left outside. So grand, in fact, that the star and the holy family are the second and third things that catch the eye after admiring the not-at-all lowly stable. It's fit for a King - and that is its mysterious mistake.
No comments:
Post a Comment