Advent: The Animals

 This Advent I am taking a closer look at four characters in the Christmas story.

My five year-old son was asked what the animals thought on that first Christmas.  He said, "What is this baby doing in my food!"

We can't know what, if anything, the animals thought on that first Christmas, but God gave us an imagination so let's use it today.  Let's make believe that God gave the animals in the stable, cave, courtyard of the home, or wherever they were a mind and mouth like Balaam's donkey.  What might they have wondered and said.

I think, if that were the case, they might have a wonderful perspective.  Think of the way they might have cheered on young Mary in those agonizing hours of labor.  Wonder at what they might have thought when a baby was placed into their feeding trough.  Perhaps Joshua was right.  Maybe they exclaimed, "What is this baby doing in my food!"

Now, imagine God gave these fortunate creatures the ability to hear what the shepherds said as they came in from the fields and into the place where this baby was laid.  The animals may have heard words like 'Christ the Lord' being uttered by these men who claimed to have been visited by a host of angels (Luke 2:9-14).  Then imagine their shock when the young mother, who claimed to be a virgin, told the herdsmen that she also had been visited by an angel that told her that she would have a son that would be called the Son of the Most High and the Lord God would give this baby the throne of His father David and that He would reign forever (Luke 1:32-33).  And what's more the father said that he too was visited by an angel who told him that Mary's baby would save His people from their sins and would be God in flesh on the earth (Matthew 1:20-23).

The animals, in this supposed situation, would have jaws sagging and straw falling out of their mouths.  Could it be?  Could salvation be coming?  Could our Maker be lying in our food?

See, the Good News is about more than sinners going to Heaven.  The redemption of the entire cosmos was inaugurated at the conception of Jesus.

"For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now." Romans 8:19-22

In those hours of painful childbirth, perhaps, the animals were reminded of their groaning in the dog-eat-dog cosmos to which they'd been subjected.  

Those animals saw the inauguration of the redemption of the whole creation and yet they died or were slaughtered before they saw the fulness of what was brought forth that Christmas day.  

Be like these animals.  Know that Jesus has come and that He will come again.  Christmas announces that God is doing something wonderful and urges us to eagerly look forward to its completion when:

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
and the weaned child shall put his hand in the adder's den.
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea." Isaiah 11:6-9

This Advent look forward to the cosmos-wide fruition of the Gospel.  Remember what the animals might have seen and heard today.