Day 4 – Adding to the story...

Read: Luke 2:1-7

What’s the most embarrassing baby story ever retold?

The couple was required to travel so that they, like everyone else, could be counted by the government. This is more than a little inconvenient. Why do they need to be counted you ask? So that they can be taxed - an experience everyone loves! Mary is really pregnant as she travels which makes for an unpleasant two-day journey. She may have even had to walk the whole way! The passage doesn’t mention the famous donkey and we already know that Mary and Joseph are poor so it’s unlikely they owned any animals.

They are forced to travel by an unfriendly government and Mary starts to worry that the baby might come the night they get there. You can only imagine how badly they longed for a warm place to spend the night. But they searched house to house for a room and couldn’t find one. How frustrating and discouraging would that be? Then some friend of a friend of a cousin offers that they could stay out back with the animals. That’s borderline insulting but they had run out of options by this point and settle in. Once again our retelling of the story has softened the harshness of the story. Nowhere is the stable mentioned, only a feeding trough is specifically noted. A more likely place was a rocky outcropping or cave that the animals used to hide from the rain. So imagine having a baby on a cold camping trip and you’re getting closer to the biblical picture.

The couple also didn’t have the benefit of a baby shower to get them the necessary blankets, clothes and cribs for having a baby. The newborn is wrapped in essentially burial cloth and laid in a trough. Did they spend the rest of night shooing animals away from the manger?

Even though we know this story and retell it often, much more exciting things were going on in the Roman empire at that time. Here is a list of what some headlines might have been:

KING ARTAXUS NEAR DEATH

GRAIN SHIPS DOCK, ROME RIOTS END

NINE PIRATE SHIPS SUNK BY SIXTH FLEET

ATHENS STUDENTS CLASH WITH POLICE

OLYMPIC WRESTLER STILL IN COMA

REPORT ANGELS SIGHTED IN JUDEA^[1]

But we know something far more significant happened in an obscure corner of the known world. God himself was born as a baby! The all-powerful, eternal creator God was born as a helpless, crying baby. Yes baby Jesus cried. Silent Night takes a bit too much poetic license. If Jesus were to be fully human he would have been a typical noisy baby. Think about it, babies are cute and beautiful but they have issues! They leak uncontrollably from a couple of places, often are bad at communicating and can’t do anything by themselves. God, in Jesus, humbled himself to such a place that he became needy and dependent on his earthly parents, all so that he could come to save us.

Questions for Reflection

• Have you spent time around a newborn baby recently? Reflect on how dependent the baby is on his parents. Isn’t it strange and mysterious that God became dependent?
• How does the wording “having a baby on a cold camping trip” change how you look at this story?
• Jesus’ birth seemed almost inconsequential at the time it happened but Jesus would become the most revolutionary person who ever lived. What seemingly inconsequential things can you do for God today that might have everlasting impact?
• Philippians 2:5-11 says that we are to model humility after Jesus. What can you do today to be humble like Jesus?

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^[1] Richards, L., & Richards, L. O. (1987). The teacher's commentary (642). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.