In my last blog, we reflected on the accounts of Christ’s birth as presented in the gospels. They barely match the idealized sweetness and serenity of our cultural version. In our scrubbed version, Mary peacefully sees herself as blessed above all women to be carrying the Son of God in her womb and Joseph serenely stands by as her faithful companion. Life is never that easy, even when you have had visitations from angels.

I try to put myself in Joseph’s place when I think of the story and I imagine that there were still questions in his heart about his bride. Did he really have a visitation from an angel or was that a dream manufactured from his subconscious to deal with her unexplained pregnancy? And what of Mary? Did she sense the doubts in her husband? Did they talk about it or just push ahead? Why would she travel so far from home in the last month of pregnancy to sign up for a census with Joseph? Her presence wasn’t required. Wouldn’t such a trip put the child at risk? Perhaps, it was just easier to travel than to endure the accusing looks of neighbors and relatives if she had stayed at home.

Philip Yancey puts it this way. “In contrast to what the cards would have us believe, Christmas did not sentimentally simplify life on planet earth. Perhaps, this is what I sense when Christmas rolls around and I turn from the cheeriness of the cards to the starkness of the gospels…Luke tells of a tremulous Mary hurrying off to the one person who could possibly understand what she was going through: her relative Elizabeth who miraculously got pregnant in old age after another angelic annunciation. Elizabeth believes Mary and shares her joy, and yet the scene poignantly highlights the contrast between the two women: the whole community is talking about Elizabeth’s healed womb even as Mary must hide the shame of her own miracle. In a few months the birth of John the Baptist took place amid great fanfare, complete with midwives, doting relatives, and the traditional village chorus celebrating the birth of a Jewish male. Six months later, Jesus was born far from home, with no midwife, extended family or village chorus present” (Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, p.3; Zondervan).

This is not to say that God’s grace was not present for the couple but it contrasts our scrubbed view of “away in a manger” with the sacrifices truly made by those who carried the Living Word into the world. The traditional village chorus that gathered around a family when a son was born was provided by our heavenly Father in the fields outside Bethlehem when angels sang to shepherds. We have no record that Mary heard the chorus except through the report of shepherds she did not know. After signing up for the census, the gospel’s indicate that Joseph and Mary stayed on in Bethlehem rather than returning to their families in Nazareth. Perhaps, that is another indicator of how unwilling family and neighbors were to accept the story.

Matthew tells us that magi (wise men) came from the east to see this new king. These astronomer/astrologers had seen a new star and assumed it was a sign for a great king. They probably came from the area of Babylon where the prophet Daniel had prophesied that a never-ending kingdom would be established in the days of certain earthly kings. Perhaps their study of his writings led them to Israel when this “new star” appeared.

They first stopped to see Herod and ask if he knew where this “new king” was staying so that they could worship him. Herod blessed their search and asked them to let him know as soon as they found this child. The magi were warned in a dream and returned home without notifying Herod of their find, but Herod consulted his Torah scholars who suggested that Bethlehem might be a likely place. Herod immediately issued an edict to kill all the male children in Bethlehem under the age of two according to the time that the magi had first seen his star. That suggests that the Jesus was perhaps 18 months old at the time, since Herod would want to give himself a margin of error for destroying any potential rivals to his throne.

The magi found Mary and Joseph still in Bethlehem in a house, not a stable. By their gifts, God funded Mary & Joseph’s flight to Egypt to escape Herod’s death squad. And so, the King of Kings, born in a stable to poor parents, became a political refugee to Egypt to avoid death. So why did God choose this hardship for the birth of the Savior?

Yancey puts it this way: “Nine months of awkward explanations, the lingering scent of scandal – it seems that God arranged the most humiliating circumstances possible for his entrance, as if to avoid any charge of favoritism. I am impressed that when the Son of God became a human being he played by the rules, harsh rules: small towns do not treat kindly young boys who grow up with questionable paternity” (Yancey, p.32). When the writer of Hebrews says that we have a high priest who understands our struggles, he does not exaggerate. I also believe that the struggles of Mary and Joseph taught them to depend totally on God for direction, protection, and provision which was their legacy to this Son of God born into the world who also had to learn those things.

So I love the homey feelings of Christmas and even the idealized Christmas cards we see because they reflect the serenity that Jesus, through his suffering, has placed within our hearts. But the hardship of the first Christmas increases the value of the gift – a gift of love and sacrifice. It also raises the question of risk. God entrusted himself and our salvation to simple parents in a hostile world who still had the free will to ignore his directions and dreams sent their way or to simply refuse his offer of being God’s instruments for bringing his Son into the world. Love risks and so God risked it all and placed it in the hands of a young couple whose faith completed the task. May we have faith to complete the tasks he has assigned to each of us and let’s be thankful this Christmas for the gift that did not come easily. Blessings in Him.