Its Christmas Eve and Im not really thinking about technology or business or what you would like to read in a blog on the internet. Like many of you, Im caught up in the final details of food and presents and family visits.
But Im also thinking of something I wrote nine years ago, so I dug it out and reread it, seeking some perspective on Christmas and what it means to me. Id like to share it with you:
Every year I try to think what it must have been like that night.
Some say it was cold. Israel lies in the subtropics, so it wouldn’t have been cold as we know it, maybe in the 40’s or 50’s, but of course, cold is relative, so it probably did seem cold to them, the young couple on that journey long ago.
More than likely it was damp and had been raining most of the day. That’s typical winter weather around Bethlehem, and when you’re tired and wet, 50° would be cold, bone-chilling cold.
And they surely would have been tired. Twenty-five miles doesn’t seem far in a car, but try walking it…or worse yet, think of riding a donkey.
So of course, they were tired, but that still wasn’t the worst of it. They were young, and they couldn’t have been married very long, because we all know the story. When the betrothed, yet unmarried Mary learned she was to bear a Child of God, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth, and the Gospels tell us she stayed with her for three months.
While she was gone, Joseph must have wrestled with his own problems. As I understand it, in those days, to be betrothed was much more serious than merely being engaged. Joseph had agreed to be responsible for Mary, he had already taken a sort of pre-marriage vow. To learn that Mary was carrying the child of another must have been a tremendous blow. Still, although he would have been perfectly justified in publicly denouncing her, after much consideration, he decided to very quietly divorce himself from her, break all ties…not denouncing her, but leaving her, all the same. He surely took some static from his family over that decision. I’m sure he had a cousin or a friend or someone who made sure he knew just how foolish he would look by treating Mary with some compassion, still he stood his ground. He would not be cruel to this young woman he had known all his life.
Only after he made his decision did God send an angel to explain to Joseph how his future bride came to be with child, and while the explanation must have been quite a relief to Joseph, I’ll bet he really caught more ridicule from his friends and family once he announced that the wedding would take place as planned!
So you see, the young couple had to be emotionally drained as well as physically exhausted when they got into Bethlehem. Newlyweds…Mary nine months pregnant…Joseph concerned for his young wife, worried about the fact that he had to drag her out in this condition. Imagine how frustrated, how angry, how helpless this young husband must have felt when he began to realize that there was not one room left in Bethlehem.
Was the stable where they finally stopped offered by some kind hearted soul who saw Mary’s condition or Joseph’s frustration, or did a greedy innkeeper see a chance to make some pocket money by charging a desperate man for the only space available where a tired couple could pass the night relatively dry and safe? We’ll never know for sure. All we know now, some two thousand years later, is that God’s Plan would happen. For in the night, in the stable, in the little town of Bethlehem, to an ordinary couple, road weary and far from home, a Child was born.
Every year, I try to think how it must have been that night. All the frustrations and human failures and problems, all the hurt and sorrow and pain, everything that was ordinary fell away…paled in the face of the miracle, not just birth, but Birth.
And if ever there was a time when the earth stood poised, with all of eternity within our grasp, it must have been that night, when the angels sang to shepherds and a young mother cradled the Son of God in the form of a baby.
Every year I try to think what it must have been like that night.
I wish you Peace and a Merry Christmas.