Different Than Expected

There’s a Christmas song on the radio that I love.  It’s a song that is sung from Joseph’s perspective and it says:

Why me, I'm just a simple man of trade
Why Him, with all the rulers in the world
Why here inside this stable filled with hay
Why her, she's just an ordinary girl
Now I'm not one to second guess what angels have to say
But this is such a strange way to save the world  

This is a strange way for God to save the world.  When we look beyond the words that we are so familiar with, the Christmas story is not the type of story we might expect to find for the birth of the Lord and Savior of the world.  It’s not a grandiose story.  It’s certainly not as romantic as we make it out to be. 

Jesus was born to a poor, unwed teenage mother.  Mary’s pregnancy brought tremendous shame to Joseph; the disgrace of being engaged to be married to Mary who becomes pregnant was unfathomable.  The long, arduous 80 miles journey to Bethlehem by donkey – Mary nine months pregnant.  Normally it would take about 4 days to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem by donkey. However, Mary, nearing her due date would require more than 4 days for fear of miscarriage. So perhaps it took them a week (or more) to arrive in Bethlehem.

Mary gives birth in the filth of a barn, probably lying on top of stiff, dirty, itchy straw.  The Christ child is laid in a feeding trough for barn animals, not the nice cradle that we find in our nativity scenes. 

The shepherds – the first ones the angels tell of the birth of Christ – the first ones to see the infant Jesus - were outcasts.  Not the most upstanding part of society back in Jesus' day; certainly not the most important people.  Yet these rough, unrefined shepherds were chosen by God to get the first look at the Savior.  The most significant event of the universe witnessed by the nobodies of society.  Unbelievable.

 

God allows his Son…. The Christ to be born into humble beginnings, without any outward splendor.  This Messiah, this Savior is “good news of great joy for ALL the people.”  The long awaited Messiah was not unapproachable royalty.  Was this what Mary expected?  Is it what we expect?

I can almost hear Mary’s gasp of relief when the birth is over; Joseph’s smothered joy at seeing this child;  the cry of the newborn Christ.  Jesus birth was so humble, so seemingly routine; grace took on human flesh and scarcely broke the hush of midnight.  Of course the night wasn’t over yet !  Christ’s birth was a gift and it was one God intended to share.  There was nothing under-the-radar about angels shouting the news of Christ to startled shepherds, singing at the top of their angelic lungs.  Celebration!  Adoration!  Good news for all people!

I don’t suppose the shepherds were expecting divine revelation when they gathered their flocks that night, but after seeing Jesus for themselves, they too, “spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child.”

And more than two thousand years later, we proclaim the same thing.  “He has come!” we proclaim on Christmas Eve!  As the prophet Isaiah proclaimed so many years ago; “A child has been born for us and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father; Prince of Peace.” 

We hear this story every year.   I don’t get tired of hearing it.  But this year, something caught my attention.  Something really touched me. Tucked in the middle of the reaction of the shepherds. “But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”    In the midst of the humbleness, the unexpectedness of the situation, Mary treasures all these words and ponders them in her heart.

I remember every detail of the births of each of my daughters.  The miracle of the child I held in my arms after so many months of waiting.  Memorizing the shape of their face – their little nose… their mouth.  Fingers and toes.  Their smell.  How beautiful they were.  How perfect.  I guess you could say that I treasured everything about my newborn daughters; “I treasured these things in my heart”.  It’s why I can still recall every detail today.  More than 25 years later I can still feel my emotions when I held my babies for the first time.  I can still put myself back in that hospital bed.  That new baby… still wet with birth fluids wrapped in my arms.  Such a miracle.

I imagine Mary had similar thoughts and feelings.  She had carried her baby for nine months.  She had waited to give birth.  I imagine she was amazed at the simple miracle of birth; I imagine that she was enthralled by the shape of his face… his nose… his mouth.  I imagine she counted his fingers and his toes.  I imagine she treasured the same things about her newborn child that I did.

But this wasn’t an ordinary child.  The shepherds told Mary and Joseph what the angels had told them about the child.   They told Mary and Joseph that they had traveled to Bethlehem to see the Christ child for themselves.  And Mary treasured these words in her heart.  She considered them precious; she cherished them.  She tucked these words; the news that angels had come to a field and proclaimed the birth of her son to these unsuspecting shepherds; that they had traveled to Bethlehem to see for themselves; these reminders of who this child was, in with her thoughts and feelings about the child she had birthed.  This baby boy.  And she treasured them.  She cherished them.  In the Message Bible, Eugene Peterson says that, “Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within her.”  I like that.  She treasured them deep within her.

These words of the shepherds, the proclamation by the angels, are added to her other experiences of God’s revelation – Gabriel’s visit to her nine months before.  She ponders what this all means.  She deeply and thoroughly considers all these things.  She stores them deep within her.

This is God’s Son.  The promised Messiah.  The Savior of the world.   What do you suppose she was thinking?  What do you suppose she was feeling?  For nine months Mary carried God’s child in her womb.  For nine months she must have wondered what he would be like – God’s Son.  She must have thought about what it would be like… how it would be… to give birth to the Messiah – the promised Savior of the world.

I wonder if it was what she expected.  I wonder if she expected that she would have to travel on a donkey for days when she was nine months pregnant.  Do you think she expected to be told there was no room for them to stay?  No place for her to give birth?  Did she expect to give birth to God’s Son in a dirty, smelly stable filled with animals? Did she anticipate that the Savior of the world would lie in a feeding trough filled with hay?  Do you suppose this is how she expected God’s Son to come into the world?   

As Mary held her son that night… as her maternal instincts kicked in, did she wonder how this defenseless baby could be the promised Messiah?   God’s revelation to Mary nine months prior; the angels glorious revelation to the shepherds matched the momentous news that God had come to earth in the person of this baby Jesus.  Did the praising, the worship, the angelic chorus that night, match the reality of her experience? 

 

I imagine that Mary pondered why the promised Messiah – the Savior of the world, would be born in a barn, laid in a feeding trough.   I wonder what Mary was thinking?  Was she thinking that this was a strange way for God to save the world?  Is it what she expected?  Is it what you expect?

The Christmas story is a beautiful story.  I will always love hearing it.  But it’s more than just a story.  This story is life changing and life saving.  God changed the world that night so many years ago in Bethlehem.  This precious baby boy grows up and turns the world upside down.  This precious baby boy grows up and makes the ultimate sacrifice so that every one of us will be forgiven for our sinful ways.  This precious baby boy is our way to eternal life.  This baby boy is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

 

This night, long ago in Bethlehem, God took on human flesh and came and lived among us that we may not perish, but have eternal life.  This is worth pondering.  This is worth sharing.  This is very good news.  “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.”    Amen.