December 22: There are Animals here, and we are the visitors

That probably isn’t the way you’ve thought about the Christmas story. Sure, the story has donkeys and doves, maybe a cow and some sheep, but we’ve assumed that they are just the backdrop to the story giving it that humble, simple feel. What if…this ‘earthy’ setting wasn’t what God tolerated, but what God sought out? What if… the birth of Jesus is just as good of news to animals, fields, mountains, seas, planets and stars as it is to us?