Yesterday, Today, and Forever Read Online Free
Author: Maria Von Trapp
Tags: RELIGION/Christian Life/Inspiration, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY/Religion
stone-hard asphalt can soften — how about human hearts?
Aren’t Mary and Joseph still going from place to place looking for shelter, and isn’t it still true that there is no room in the inn? The only change is that this time the innkeepers are we …you and I.
Chapter 4
Silent Night, Holy Night
I come from Tyrol. This is the part of Austria with the highest mountains and the greatest number of woodcarvers. Woodcarving seems to be a talent that is inheritable. There are whole valleys where all the families carve. The favorite objects are the very end and the very beginning of redemption — the crucifix and the crib. Tyrol is the country of the Christmas crib. Every home and every church has such a representation of the Nativity, more or less elaborate, more or less artistic. But always the cave is freshly painted and meticulously clean, ox and ass look well-groomed, and the straw may even be a little gilded.
When one grows up among those “pretty” cribs, one easily forgets how different it must have been on that first Holy Night. Because there was a manger in the cave, it must have been used for animals, so the floor was littered with dung. Except for that manger, there was nothing in it perhaps but a little barley straw. The only fresh air came through the narrow entrance by which one stepped down into that dark, smelly hole. “To make oneself at home” was quite impossible. Joseph could only try to make Mary a little less uncomfortable by arranging the straw so that she could lean against the wall opposite the entrance, get some fresh air, and look up into the cold winter sky.
The Gospels don’t mention the ox and ass, without which every crib would be unthinkable, but Isaiah the prophet knew of them: “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib” (Isa. 1:3; KJV). The Gospels also do not mention the cave directly, still, tradition very often supplements the Gospels. After all, didn’t John the Apostle say that the world itself could not hold the books that would have to be written if everything should be told in detail? And it is according to tradition of the very first centuries. Justinius the martyr, living in the generation after the Apostles, and after him Jerome, living in a cave outside Bethlehem himself for most of his life, reverently describes this cave of the Holy Night.
What may have gone on during these next hours of the most holy of all nights? “And while they were there,” says Luke (2:6–7), “the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.” And tradition adds that Joseph, who saw that the hour was at hand now for the young mother and who did not know that she wouldn’t need any aid, went over to Bethlehem to look for a helper among the women. Mary, however, was drawn in deepest recollection into God, and when she came out of ecstasy, before her lay her little child. With indescribable happiness she must have taken Him to her heart, and wrapped Him up against the cold. When Joseph returned, he found mother and child. Forgotten now was the anxiety of the last days, the crushing disappointment of the evening, the coldness of the hearts in Bethlehem, as well as the cold of the frosty winter night. In this cave there was only love and wonder and adoration. For “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us …we have beheld his glory” (John 1:14).
Chapter 5
Angels We Have Heard on High
Christ was born in Bethlehem, but the world didn’t notice. The world was asleep. “The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (John 1:5; KJV). Only a few miles away in Jerusalem the house of the Lord God was silent and dark. The priests of the Most High were asleep. Also, the king’s palace was dark. Herod was seeking relief from his pain in sleep. All the great ones in Israel, the scribes, the doctors of the law, the zealots, the Pharisees, and the Herodians
Aren’t Mary and Joseph still going from place to place looking for shelter, and isn’t it still true that there is no room in the inn? The only change is that this time the innkeepers are we …you and I.
Chapter 4
Silent Night, Holy Night
I come from Tyrol. This is the part of Austria with the highest mountains and the greatest number of woodcarvers. Woodcarving seems to be a talent that is inheritable. There are whole valleys where all the families carve. The favorite objects are the very end and the very beginning of redemption — the crucifix and the crib. Tyrol is the country of the Christmas crib. Every home and every church has such a representation of the Nativity, more or less elaborate, more or less artistic. But always the cave is freshly painted and meticulously clean, ox and ass look well-groomed, and the straw may even be a little gilded.
When one grows up among those “pretty” cribs, one easily forgets how different it must have been on that first Holy Night. Because there was a manger in the cave, it must have been used for animals, so the floor was littered with dung. Except for that manger, there was nothing in it perhaps but a little barley straw. The only fresh air came through the narrow entrance by which one stepped down into that dark, smelly hole. “To make oneself at home” was quite impossible. Joseph could only try to make Mary a little less uncomfortable by arranging the straw so that she could lean against the wall opposite the entrance, get some fresh air, and look up into the cold winter sky.
The Gospels don’t mention the ox and ass, without which every crib would be unthinkable, but Isaiah the prophet knew of them: “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib” (Isa. 1:3; KJV). The Gospels also do not mention the cave directly, still, tradition very often supplements the Gospels. After all, didn’t John the Apostle say that the world itself could not hold the books that would have to be written if everything should be told in detail? And it is according to tradition of the very first centuries. Justinius the martyr, living in the generation after the Apostles, and after him Jerome, living in a cave outside Bethlehem himself for most of his life, reverently describes this cave of the Holy Night.
What may have gone on during these next hours of the most holy of all nights? “And while they were there,” says Luke (2:6–7), “the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.” And tradition adds that Joseph, who saw that the hour was at hand now for the young mother and who did not know that she wouldn’t need any aid, went over to Bethlehem to look for a helper among the women. Mary, however, was drawn in deepest recollection into God, and when she came out of ecstasy, before her lay her little child. With indescribable happiness she must have taken Him to her heart, and wrapped Him up against the cold. When Joseph returned, he found mother and child. Forgotten now was the anxiety of the last days, the crushing disappointment of the evening, the coldness of the hearts in Bethlehem, as well as the cold of the frosty winter night. In this cave there was only love and wonder and adoration. For “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us …we have beheld his glory” (John 1:14).
Chapter 5
Angels We Have Heard on High
Christ was born in Bethlehem, but the world didn’t notice. The world was asleep. “The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (John 1:5; KJV). Only a few miles away in Jerusalem the house of the Lord God was silent and dark. The priests of the Most High were asleep. Also, the king’s palace was dark. Herod was seeking relief from his pain in sleep. All the great ones in Israel, the scribes, the doctors of the law, the zealots, the Pharisees, and the Herodians
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