If you’ve grown up in a Christian setting, you’ve probably heard the Christmas story a gazillion times.  

So let’s rewind 2000 years again to Jesus’ birth:

We would expect a well connected royal family…

God chose peasant parents- a blue-collar carpenter with his teenage virgin fiance.

God chose the little town of Bethlehem, where the sheep very likely outnumbered the people.

We would reserve space in a comfortable palace…

God chose a stone manger in a cold stable hewn out of the rocky hills.

We would invite the religious and social elite…

God chose the social outcast and religious outsider shepherds.

The Apostle Paul writes, “when the fulness of time came, God sent forth his Son…”  The people, the place, and the time were all on purpose.  Apparently, when God sent His Son to launch His rescue mission for this world, He wasn’t utilizing the same strategic thinking that we normally would.

So, as I think and pray about God’s heart to still move in the world today…

I look on the VT map at  towns like Wilmington, Highgate, Northfield, and Winooski…

I walk past forgotten streets in Burlington’s Old North End…

I meet the struggling homeless person or refugee…

And I can’t help but think, why not here?