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We've been thinking on things unseen, about the challenge at Christmas time, the challenge to keep Jesus himself at the heart of things. And I know that kind of talk can sometimes devolve into a sense of duty, responsibility, and perhaps even a burden. It's always struck me as a paradox that the very season when the church celebrates, the one whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light, is actually a season in which many Christians feel an excessive sense of burden. One of the reasons for that is the false expectations we are encouraged to have. Here's one example, although I hope I'm not going to spoil your Christmas Eve services by mentioning it. These services often begin with the words of Luke, chapter 2, verse 15, usually in the King James Version. Let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass which the Lord hath made known unto us. I have to confess, I've given up trying to get to Bethlehem on Christmas Eve because you can't get there. I think I know what people are trying to say when they use this verse, but I wonder if the great hymn writer Horatius Bonhoe had the same experience. He wrote a little hymn about looking for Christ, in which he says, we went to Bethlehem, but Christ wasn't there. That is to say, I can't generate this new affection I need by making an imaginary geographical journey to where Jesus was born. So maybe we need to think in a different way about our struggles to feel Christmas. After all, there were certain elements in the first Christmas that don't feel very Christmassy. A long journey away from home for a young woman expecting a child when she was still in her teens. No Holiday Inn, no Hampton Inn, never mind the Ritz for Joseph and Mary going round Bethlehem looking for somewhere to rest, a place for Mary to wait for the imminent birth of her son. It crosses my mind just as I think of that. Was Jesus birth, humanly speaking, premature because of their journey and their struggles to find a place? How difficult it must have been for Mary. And in addition, young Mary's mother almost certainly wasn't there to help. And then, I don't know how many times we need to sing. The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes to realize that couldn't possibly be wholly true. And then later on, there were the warnings about Herod and the Exodus in reverse that Mary and Joseph had as they hastily bundled up their little son one night and made their way down to Egypt. There's not much that feels Christmassy about that, is there? And yet it's understanding their hardship that creates the expulsive power of a new affection. Because the Gospel tells us this was all for us. And this is what the best Christmas hymns are all about. How Christ's suffering and impoverishment was all for us. Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor, all for love's sake became us poor. Or perhaps you know the hymn by that 17th century metaphysical poet, Richard Crashaw. Gloomy night embraced the place where the noble infant lay. The babe looked up and showed his face in spite of darkness it was day, great little one, whose all embracing birth Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth. Or perhaps you know the lovely Gaelic carol, Child in the manger. Infant of Mary, outcast and stranger, Lord of all, Child who inherits all our transgressions, all our demerits on him fall. Or he came down to earth from heaven, who is God and Lord of all. And his shelter was a stable and his cradle was a stall with the poor and mean and lowly lived on earth our Savior Holy. Or perhaps you know that other 17th century carol by Thomas Pestle. Behold, the great Creator makes himself a house of clay. A robe of human flesh he takes which he will wear for aye. I wonder if these words about the amazing humiliation, the suffering of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus, don't they create a new affection in your heart for him? I hope so. And may it be so.