“And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee“

Wow, does it seem that the objective of some of our societies’ most  influential people is just to get a rise out of others by making shocking and sometimes disparaging and vulgar statements.  And we wonder why our children don’t understand us when we try and teach civility and manners.  There is nothing wrong about being provocative and in fact, our marketing must be so, otherwise we get lost in the clutter.  We also have to be relevant and on the edge to be able to attract the best talent to our companies, but we don’t need to go over that edge.  We should probably think about what that line is where we have caused our customers, consumers, shareholders and employees to rise up in the wrong way.

The Christmas account tells of Jesus born in Bethlehem.  I didn’t know until I was teaching it in Sunday School a few weeks ago that Bethlehem means, “house of bread.”  As soon as I read this I said, “Of course it does”.  The references to bread throughout the Bible are many, including Jesus telling us that He is the bread of life.  Bread can only rise once.  Unless, that bread of life is Jesus who rose again for us.  Jesus rose and Jesus did get a rise out of the world as everything changed after Him.  So, yes, we hope that we can create a rise in the spirits of others, a rise their hope, a rise their openness to God.  But, it starts with us being ready to rise for Him.

Reference:  Luke 2: 4 (New Living Translation)