Again the cultural realities buffet gives a smorgasbord in chapter two. Circumcision? The operation performed publicly in my neighborhood often on a bed outdoors in the courtyard. The last one I went to was performed on a sewage grate. Pilgrimages? Common sites of families on long journeys with babies swaddled from the cold. Traveling in groups where older children bounce around cared for by everyone and no one. Shepherds? Social outcasts without homes build of stone so they have nowhere to identify as their place. In South Asian culture place can decide your destiny.
Instead of a cultural reality how about a governmental reality. I love how Chapter Two starts with the strong names of Caesar Augustus and Quirinius. Power, authority, prestige seeps from their very names. Power.
I think of friends waiting for visas, justice, and governments to move. Here we see in the face of power and unthinkable might God still had control. His arm is not too short to move for His glory and His people in South Asia. May we, like Joseph, stay faithful in our obedience and wait to see in, perhaps the unlikely, God's hand break forth with power.
Instead of a cultural reality how about a governmental reality. I love how Chapter Two starts with the strong names of Caesar Augustus and Quirinius. Power, authority, prestige seeps from their very names. Power.
I think of friends waiting for visas, justice, and governments to move. Here we see in the face of power and unthinkable might God still had control. His arm is not too short to move for His glory and His people in South Asia. May we, like Joseph, stay faithful in our obedience and wait to see in, perhaps the unlikely, God's hand break forth with power.
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