The Outcast

For all the merriment and festivities, Christmas is a time of perhaps unequaled pain for many -- the bitterness of old memories, the sorrow of lost traditions, loneliness of another holiday without family and friends.   But was not even the first Christmas a time of turmoil, a story peopled with outcasts?  Mary surely lost her reputation, and nearly her fiancé, with the gossip of her pregnancy going around small-town Nazareth.  And what about Joseph -- what might people whisper behind his back when his bride turns up pregnant before the wedding?  What did their families think?  A trip to Bethlehem where no one would know the scandal was probably almost welcome, even if it was just another oppressive reminder that their nation was a slave of Rome.

And what of the Child?  Well, His loss on that first Christmas was greater than any of us will ever experience.  He left behind a perfect relationship with His Father in His perfect dwelling place, and came to a dingy, dark world where He was an inconvenience, a laughing-stock, without even a decent birthplace.  All His life, He was an outcast, misunderstood even by His family and closest friends.  And at the end they all abandoned Him to the most shameful death imaginable.  He understands bitter memories, sorrow, and loneliness.  And all out of love for us -- hurting outcast, turn to Him, the One who bore it all that you might share His joy.

He is despised and rejected by men,

a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief . . .

Surely He has borne our griefs,

and carried our sorrows.

Isaiah 53:3-4