Almost nine months ago this coming Christmas Day, I was in a Hospital operating room, giving birth to my first born son. No stable, no manger, no virgin birth—just a normal human boy being delivered by a very ordinary mother.
Last Christmas, I was in a large Christmas program at our church. I was also 6 months pregnant with a boy. As we got ready for one evening’s performance, a woman asked me if I felt the significance of carrying my first born son at Christmastime. I hadn’t thought about it beyond the fact that my oversized angel costume could incite younger show goers to ask their parents some rather unchristmaslike questions that evening.
Eventually, we got to the segment of the program where Joseph and Mary are trying to get a room at the inn. I was one of twenty or so people on stage also pretending to need a room. Someone improvised the line, “but she’s having a baby!” and the Christmas timing suddenly hit me. I began thinking about Mary, heavy with a full-term baby, being forced to travel on the back of an animal and resorting to giving birth among animals in a building that was tantamount to a carport. As an expectant mother, I was moved to tears as I imagined the fears she must have had and the doubts about whether God was going to provide for them. I gave birth in a sterile hospital room. I had the assistance of a highly trained and experienced medical professional who had treated me since day one. Nurses stood by with oxygen, suction tubes, heaters, blankets and dozens of other things. Mary had to trust God to provide all of that. You might think it would be easier for her since, after all, an angel had come to her about this and told her of God’s plan in her life, but if I had been Mary, I would have seriously begun to doubt God around the time I packed my bags for Bethlehem.
It’s strange to imagine that my son had a more glamorous entrance into this world than the very Son of God. It wasn’t just modern technology that made it possible; there were cleaner and more honorable ways to give birth even then. Mary wasn’t given that luxury. Did God just want His Son to come in the most undesirable, uncomfortable way possible so no one could use that word, “privilege?”
I went to Israel a long time ago and we visited the place where Jesus is said to have been born. If you’ve ever seen it on a television program, you know how enshrined it is. It is gilded, marbled and smells strongly of incense. There is very little left of the humble stable it used to be. A large gold star marks the spot where Jesus was born. I have no idea how anyone could possibly have that much information from a supposedly obscure birth, but they claim to know that that piece of earth is It.
I’m convinced that it isn’t the actual location that matters, but the event itself. When Jesus was born, unlike any other birth to take place on Earth, there became a reason to hope. Our redemption was at hand and this great cosmic battle against the predator death was nearly won. That’s why we celebrate. Everything else is secondary to the fact that on that night, whenever it was, hope came to Earth.
More than just poetic, fantastic words; the hope that was born that first Christmas has lead to victory and victory to grace. That may seem far removed from daily life, but if you’ve ever seen a life redeemed by God’s grace alone, you would celebrate this Christmas with as much zeal as any of those who witnessed Christ’s birth.
Perhaps I’m a little gung-ho about God’s grace these days. I see it in everything from the timing of my son’s birth, to how it saved my sister from an eternity without hope. This is going to be an unusual Christmas for those reasons as well. Merry Christmas to all my friends and family—I love you all.
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