In a recent devotion, I came across a Christmas story in an unexpected place: the middle of Luke’s gospel, fifteen chapters after the traditional Christmas story.
Luke 18:35-43 tells of a twice-burdened man: a roadside beggar who is also blind. Each day he’s forced to plead and scrape—in darkness—just to survive. No doubt he lives by patterns. Seventy-three steps between the best place to beg and his sleeping mat; the familiar sound of a shopkeeper who usually slips him a bit of fish; the feel in his hand of a cool cup of water a kind woman brings him. These …