Breathe

What happens now? When the celebrations are over, the parties are past, and the excitement has settled into everyday-everynight life?

The baby’s been born. The angel’s have proclaimed. The shepherd’s have visited. The baby’s been marked as a chosen child of God. The child’s been named.

Seemingly the momentous and miraculous elements are done and past. Now it is time to find our own way – to wake, rise, feed, bathe, eat, rest, work, feed, eat, sleep, rinse, repeat.

But how do we repeat the daily mundane (over and over and over and over and over and over) when there are no more angelic choruses? no more heart-stopping first breaths? no more heavenly pronouncements of good news for all the earth? no more supernatural visits? no more Emmanuel?

Ah: Think. Listen. Reason.

Even if the angelic choruses, first breaths, heavenly pronouncements, and supernatural visits are past, this will never pass:

EMMANUEL.

God with us. God as us. God for us. God in us.

Though he arrived at a specific moment in time, he still is. He still is God. He still is here. He still is Emmanuel.

And that means there is no such thing as everyday-everynight meaningless mundane life.

If Emmanuel, then rejoice.

If Emmanuel, then life.

If Emmanuel, then hope.

If Emmanuel, then love.

Night nine is not the ninth cycle of the same. It is a new cycle, just as each day and each night is … because Emmanuel.