Christmas Eve, 70 Degrees, and Hail

Baby Jesus did you come like they say in all those songs and stories and books?
Like a lamb?
All quiet and unobtrusive?
Little cries, little weak cries?
Sleeping through the night from the start like a
“good baby?”
No struggle to fight out of those swaddling cloths?
So subtle, you were, that the others never would have found you without that great big star?

Or did you come like a lion?

Did you let go a roar as you tumbled out?
Or maybe a shrill shriek of delight?
A piercing giggle,
An unconcealable laugh?
Did you keep them up all night with your fussing about? Keep them up like you did that night years later,
“Don’t you know I would be about my Father’s business?”

Baby Jesus, I always think of that night as snowy, calm– the stable silent, the world motionless (not like that day you died and the whole thing quaked).
Certainly there was gentleness, humility, joy.
Certainly it was a night of peace (at least in their hearts..)

But as I wake to a red lightening sky on this Christmas Eve morning, I wonder if maybe you came with a storm.