"All night and all day
they shall never be silent,
to remind the Lord God
to take no rest
until he re-establishes Jerusalem."

There, around 539 BC in the shambles
of the Temple and the Holy City,
some of the captives
have begun to return
from two generations of slavery
in Babylon.

and, the horror of a ruined city
erodes their spirits.
They feel alone and vulnerable,
poor and unprotected on that destroyed hillside.

They gather at the fallen walls
looking East
and cry out to God
that the soul of their corporate life
their identity and prosperity
might be restored

and that they might feel safe
once more.

Two days ago
I read a long e-mail message
from an Episcopal Priest
still working at ground zero.

A dozen times a day, he says,
he is called to a site
to bless a piece of what used to be
a human being,
as it is removed from the rubble
with quiet ceremony
and taken away.

The feeling must be much the same
as those who waited on those ruined walls
of Jerusalem
in the time of our first reading.

Yet, Isaiah repeats God's promises to them
"See, your salvation comes
and they shall be called
The redeemed of the Lord
- a City not Forsaken."

Bob Hennagin is the Rector of St. Hilary's
Episcopal Church in Ft. Myers.

He put the seed of a story
on an internet list server I check occasionally.

A story based on his idea
might go something like this.

A couple must travel to New York City
and finds themselves late at night
stuck in lower Manhatten
their small purse lost
and no where to go.

They are afraid,
and so migrate somehow
to the area of Ground Zero,
thinking, very correctly,
that they might there be safe
if not warm.

The man finds some pieces of the doomed buildings
and erects a lean-to
to shelter his very young
and very pregnant wife.

They settle down into each other's arms to rest
just as the young woman
feels the first pangs of childbirth.

The child is born,
quietly, there in the tangle
of a fallen icon,

She wraps him in the best clothing she has,
and lays him in an empty crate
that was once filled with cans
of tomato soup.

Suddenly,
the recovery work starts up
for the midnight shift.

A spotlight from a crane above
illuminates the small family,
and the workers pause
before beginning their heart-wrenching task
to look over
at the mom and dad
and the infant in a tomato box,
huddled in the cold.

They stop,
and in the silence
comes a voice
- possibly of that same priest working there
saying,
"Let us go and see
what the Lord has done."

They all go,
their search dogs at their side.

One by one, they go,
look at the baby
in the tomato box
and into the face of the holy mother.

They leave small things,
a chocolate bar, a warmer wrap,
an offering of money.

And they depart
to continue their difficult work,
knowing that
in this devastated place
with its ruined walls
and memories of the dead,
new life has broken into the darkness,
God has visited,
and will help take away
the loneliness, terror, and hatred
that infects their hearts.

Mary gave birth to the Son of God
in a specific rude place
in a specific rude time,
giving hope for all humankind.

That hope is not bounded by place and time.

The Lord Jesus is born into every generation
every village
every heart that will recognize him.

It happens most magically and most powerfully,
it seems,
when those times are times of terror,
the places: places of horror.

For in just those times
we learn that we are not able
to be saved by our own hand,
and we are desparately in need of God.

The baby Jesus is new life
and signals new possibilities for humanity.

New life can happen at the ground zero of our lives
in New York
or in Monkton
or in Kaubul, the West Bank,
or the streets of Belfast, for that matter.

The journey of faithfulness and fulfillment
begins as we see
that God joins our journey,
and we are amazed.

By the very intrusiveness of God
into the rude corners of every life
we are made one people
and are called to raise a new Jerusalem in our hearts,
God's Jerusalem,
out of the ashes of the old.

For at that first Christmas
the clouds of smoke
that stood between heaven and earth
were for a time
swept away

God's light broke through,
and we remember.

We remember enough
to know that God inhabits the dark places
of our own lives
and makes them open, bright, and holy.

"See," cries Isaiah,
"Your salvation comes
and you shall be the redeemed of the Lord,
a city not forsaken."

"The shepherds returned,
glorifying and praising God
for all they had heard and seen,
as it had been told them.