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I stand at the pantry door looking for the pasta. I know it’s in there but I just can’t find it! How could an entire box of pasta just disappear? Another pair of eyes come to join mine at the pantry door and with their help, the pasta magically appears…right there before my very eyes. The pasta was there all along. It’s just that I was looking for a red and green box not a yellow and white bag! Sometimes it just takes a new pair of eyes.

Jesus’ message on that hillside in Galilee challenges us to see with new eyes. Who would choose to be poor in spirit or to mourn? It’s not part of the cultural norm to be meek or to hunger and thirst for righteousness. The merciful and pure in heart are probably not at the top of the chain for promotions.

Peacemakers, in this day and age, risk being labeled unpatriotic. Nobody wants to be persecuted!

In his book, An Explorer’s Guide to Christian Living: Journey to the Center of the Faith, James Harnish says,

After Christmas each year I hear people say, “Well, it’s time to get back to reality.” They say it with resignation, as if all the promises of joy, hope, love, and peace that are at the center of the Christmas gospel are little more than a wishful fantasy, a pleasant dream, like sugarplums dancing in our heads.

They assume – albeit reluctantly - that the real world is the world about which we read in the newspaper every day: the world of hurt, pain, violence, greed, and war.

But people of biblical faith know that reality is exactly the other way around.

The ultimate reality, the reality toward which all of history is moving…is nothing other than God’s peaceful kingdom, God’s loving reign, God’s gracious rule revealed in Jesus Christ.

Sometimes it is difficult to see that real world. That world looks very different from the world we usually see. The gifts of Christmas and Epiphany include the promise of new eyes for those who choose to see.

Christmas: God comes into our world clothed in the flesh of humanity. In that flesh, the gracious rule of God is actualized in real-life, down-to-earth, human experience.

O God, we are bold enough to ask that you now clothe yourself in our flesh, so people will recognize your Spirit in us and receive your great gift of love. Amen.