Today, Christmas answers the question: "Where are you staying?" The stable is depicted as a crumbling palace. It is still possible to recognize its former splendor, but now it has become a ruin, the walls are falling down. In fact, it has become a stable. David’s throne, which had been promised to last forever, stands empty. Joseph, the descendant of David, is a simple artisan.

David himself had begun life as a shepherd... In the stable of Bethlehem, the very town where it had all begun, the Davidic kingship started again in a new way, in that child wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. The new Throne from which this "David" will draw the world to himself is the Cross.

—The Cross corresponds to the new beginning in the stable. Yet, this is exactly how the true Davidic Palace is being built. This new Palace is the community of those who allow themselves to be drawn by Christ’s love and so become one body with Him, a new humanity. The power of self-giving goodness that comes from the Cross! This is the true kingship.