Its that time of year....and it started earlier than I remembered in the past. I know I saw christmas items being set on shelves when I went to buy halloween candy. Somehow every year it seems to fly past me quicker than the last. I was recently thinking too about the underlying ideas we have about Christmas. Not about the cutural traditions we have like trees and gifts. More about how realistic I am about Christ's birth. I don't think I have really thought about what it meant to really be born in a stable. To be born at the time of the census. Thousands of people were converging on a tiny city. There were probably many people without rooms for the night in that stable with Mary when she was giving birth. She didnt have her mother, or aunts with her to help her in childbirth...let alone a doctor. This was her first child...and she was sharing a stable with strangers and animals. Oh...and the animals! I have never set foot in a barn or stable yet that had animals living there and smelled good. They have often been dusty smelly places with mice and cats and ...well it was enough to make me want to go home and shower later because I still smelled the barn on me later. Mary had no place to shower or wash her face, much less Jesus. Yet this is how God chose to come and live among us. Not in a palace on a hill or as a ruler..but as a baby, born into chaotic times, to a young inexperienced mother and a timid new father. Among His creation, and with His creation, as His creation. It makes me wonder what God really thinks about this world and what we perceive as "ideal". God's perfect plan was not our idea of "ideal", and yet it was. God with us. Emmanuel. Right in the dirty dusty chaos of our lives and hearts, to give us hope and love and life. When you think of the story of Christmas this year remember who it was that came and how he came to save.
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