Come to the stable you pilgrims you believers, needing to be reborn needing to be affirmed in your faith needing this advent season, needing desperately, to be in the spirit within the stable, standing, kneeling by the baby’s bed, the baby’s manger bed look into his face, the face of his parents see the truth of his life, his call, his fulfillment He is the one they had hoped for, for centuries waiting for the stump, the stump of Jesse to bear a son, a shoot, a new branch ready to take the mantle of David to rise to lead his people, to set his people free to seal the breach so long ago, mend the bond provide a path, a way, to reconciliation with the father, to be the one who would create heaven on earth We wait too, again, for the child in the manger and the king to descend from heaven and bring us home