Ramblings from Retirement - Nativity

Ramblings from Retirement - Nativity
By Lee Hemen (Retired Pastor)
December 24, 2020

A couple traveling was nothing new especially at this time when everyone was required to head back to their ancestral places of birth. It was required and they had no choice in the matter. The government dictated that they had to go and be counted and so they went. To do otherwise would have brought the full force of the Empire down on them.

This one couple walked side by side carrying a few meager possessions, food, and things for the baby that could be born any time soon. The young woman was pregnant. Her husband was worried because there were so many traveling and what if he could not find anywhere for them to rest and for her to be protected from the weather. She was pregnant after all and that alone was risk enough. Many women died in child birth but she was strong, young, and a lovely person who loved God and he was certain that God loved her.

I wonder if he thought about what had transpired in both of their lives because of the child she carried. I wonder if he thought about what others would think if they only knew. As they trudged towards the small village of Bethlehem just outside of Jerusalem with the other pilgrims required to do so by Rome his wife’s time was near and he began to worry even more.

Door after door and place after place was closed to them. He tried every rest house, inn, and place he could think of and was finally directed to a man who had room in a stable for them. A mere cave for the birthing and care of sick animals used mostly by shepherds but it was out of the weather and they could build a small fire and rest in the gathered hay of the stable. And it was just in time because his wife’s childbirth pains began to come in earnest and they both knew what that meant. She would give birth that night.

Soon the baby came, a boy, a warm, wrinkled, brown-eyed, baby boy but much more than either of them could ever guess. Would it surprise you to learn that the young mother began to treasure each moment like most loving mothers do when they give birth for the first time? She did and she would remember what occurred this night especially. Shepherds, strangers, came and wanted to see her child. They exclaimed that while they had been keeping watch over their flocks that night messengers from God had come and declared to them that they would find her and her baby boy. She knew why. Her husband knew as well because they both had been told themselves by God that the child she would birth would be the long awaited Messiah the world waited and longed for. He would bring peace, salvation, and joy to the world.

Becoming pregnant during her betrothal time had frightened her because she knew her future husband could have had her stoned to death yet he also had been visited by God’s messenger and had been assured that this child was very special indeed. And now others, shepherds of all people, the ragtag outcasts of society came declaring that they had also been told of her baby.

Mothers give birth to babies everyday all around the world but this baby, this birth, and this little baby boy would bring a new birth to anyone who would accept it. This baby would grow to be a man and he would change everything. But right now in a stable resting in a feeding trough he looked so small and his father thought, his mother wondered, and shepherds were amazed.
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This article is copyrighted © 2020 by Lee Hemen and is the sole property of Lee Hemen, and may not be used unless you quote the entire article and have my permission.