One way to measure the impact of the Christmas story is how we can't seem to leave it alone. We can't hear it without joining in, setting it to music, acting it out in old bathrobes, using every sized baby doll imaginable. We capture the picture on cards, ornaments, and in the very presents we purchase. As one wise young mind asked, somewhat critically, "Why do we spend so much time getting ready to be merry?"

And the impulse isn't limited to our imaginations. There seems to be something within us that wants, along with God, to create. The telling of the story moves us to the telling of our stories. We create our way into the saga along with the "Littlest Angel,” the "Fourth Wise Man," "The Stable Spider," "Amahl, and the Night Visitors.” If we're lucky and sensitive, perhaps it won't stop. The Christmas story leads us to explore the deepest corners of our sometimes-darkened lives occasionally revealing a patch of light.

Like the scruffy little boy conscripted for the school pageant. As he reluctantly sauntered up to the crib where the plastic rehearsal doll was to lay, now replaced with the real thing. The infant reached for the youngster causing him to jump back exclaiming; "Holy cow, it's a baby!” It was, in fact, his little brother.

The Christmas story leads us to explore our own stories and on occasion get surprised as we discover that night of long ago for the first time. "The story" and our story, play off one another with reflection becoming a two-way mirror so that the manger can be seen. "Holy cow it is a baby!"

"Don't just do something, stand there!” That was Joseph and perhaps more than any other insight, his is most important to the ages.

Like Rembrandt's canvas, "The Adoration of the Shepherds," we gaze upon a medieval barn, shadows are heavy at midnight. The flickering fire illuminates kneeling shepherds, an older man standing with a lantern in hand, a boy keeping a tight grip on a nervous watchdog while Mary cradles the infant in her arms. She looks so peace-filled, maybe pensive. Two women seem to be chattering in the background. And then there is Joseph standing, hair tousled, face lined and worn, one shoulder thrust a little forward as if to protect his loved ones from the onlookers. There stands Joseph with anxious, worried look, just watching.

“Don't just do something, ...stand there!"

It's always struck me as ironic how often Joseph is left out. Omitted from Christmas cards, an extra for the nativity sketches. Mary holds center stage, then the baby and the kings who arrived fashionably late, the shepherds, and even the farm animals. Joseph gets lost in the crowd, a day worker and carpenter of sorts, a transparent non-entity.

He did his part getting Mary to Bethlehem and later he will spirit his new family away to Egypt, but as for anything else, he's just an onlooker. She had caught his eye in the market, they had planned to be married, but then came this "stand-in" angel, and Joseph was “odd man out.”

I remember the birth of our first son; I was allowed into the delivery room. Talk about being a fifth wheel. How difficult it is to see the person you love in pain and there isn't a thing you can do; only a word of encouragement perhaps.

I recall when our youngest son slipped on a rock while walking in a stream about 20 feet away from me; I heard the crack of his shoulder breaking. The creek bed was slippery with moss and it took me forever to reach him. How helpless we find ourselves when a loved one is hurting and all we can do is watch.

Life is full of such moments– corporate downsizing and your family's future hangs in limbo. Economics force us to do less and we can't find a way to earn more. Health deteriorates and we just can't get as much done; a family member seems bent on self-destruction. That call comes in the middle of the night and all we can do is wait and watch like helpless Joseph.

A person was recently telling me about becoming an adoptive parent. Their words are perhaps the best way to describe it. Adoptive parent: in a way, that's what every parent is. The Prophet wrote, "Our children are not our children.” They are the future put on loan to us. Those of us who have them are, I think, adopted by our children, chosen under God's supervision, that they might teach us about ourselves and life and God.

Yet, being a true foster parent as Joseph, that sometimes may offer even greater insight. There is a certain vulnerability. You can do nothing but wait on the agencies and the courts. Then the moment comes and you realize there are no expectations. Just because you played ball is no guarantee your child will. Maybe he will have the genetic make up of a ballerina or a pianist. Rather than cooking and playing with dolls your new daughter may want to run a bulldozer. It's a good lesson for every parent's "expectation chest.” All of our children should be seen as wonderful mysteries filled with potential and no assumptions.

Caught in circumstance, swept along, afraid of the jagged rocks of indecision, that was Joseph. Foster parent to the child of God. Joseph, who learned to just stand there not doing anything, because there wasn't anything he could do.

Yet, perhaps he learned as we learn from experience to simply savor life. To pack 24-hours into each day. In Devries' novel "The Blood of the Lamb," a father of a child dying of leukemia prays; "Give us a year, we'll spend it to the last. We'll mark the dance of every hour between snow-drop and snow. Crocus to tulip we'll again watch the blizzard and feed the plain birds that stay to cheer us. Give us just a year."

The hardest task in the world is just being there. To feed love to those most vulnerable and to be fed by them. It's the toughest job there is and yet, it is perhaps the most important. If Joseph hadn't been there, would there have been a place for you and me? Those of us who know well the impotency, share the hopelessness, feel the frustrating anguish when the great myth of being "in control" is exposed as the illusion that it is. Maybe it's only through Joseph we can discover our places in life.

A time of "Peace on Earth," "when all the world in stillness lay." There is anything but stillness. We are so occupied with doing, wrapping, delivering, trimming, and partying. The calendar and clock remind us like the "Mad Hatter," "We're late for a very important date. Hello, goodbye, we're late, we're late, we're late!" It's the tune of the times for every man, woman, and child.

Maybe not so for the children. For them the days don't seem to go fast enough. But as for us men, it's getting the stuff done or getting our secretaries to do it. Presents take precious time men don't seem to have, and women too. I recall a book my mother has laying around; "Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much." The holiday rush is an equal opportunity user, before we know it the season is past and somehow we missed it.

Stand and watch, "Venite Adoremus.” "Come let us adore him." Let's get first things first, "Venite Adoremus." Not only the baby, but stand and watch the one who is there to comfort us, if we but ask. The One who stands and watches until we do ask.

Can you see the agony? The wonder about where our actions and inactions will lead? Just as God stood and watched a son, that baby all grown up, watched as he carried a cross up a garbage-dump hill. God watched and listened to the taunting cruelty, the sound of hammer and nail, skin torn and then heard that baby, all grown up say, "Forgive them, they just don't know what they are doing."

Here is why we should stand and wait, watch and worship–"Venite Adoremus.” There is nothing we can do, nothing we can bring, it's too late for that.

"Joseph, son of David, do not fear," said the angel. Jim and Alice, Mary and Bob, Harriet and Tom, and Jane, all of you, that is the word from the Lord. All of us who are standing at the manger's edge. The eternal word is, "Do not be afraid.” The One who made heaven and earth, time and eternity, ruler over life and death, and all that is to come, that One is with us sharing the pain, the uncertainties.

The word is simply "stop!" Stop trying for just a moment. Stop striving, doing all that you think you have to do. Instead; don't just do something, stand there. Accept, believe, trust, let go of control, and know that you and those whom you love are safe, because God cares that much. See God, standing, waiting, and watching us!

The time is near, "Venite Adoremus.” If you miss it then nothing else you do will matter. Nothing will take or can take its place. The time is at hand to simply learn to stand and watch, wait, and worship, and know that we are being watched with loving, longing eyes. So don't just do something, stand there.! "Venite Adoremus!"

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