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It was Christmas 2006. I was visiting my parents for the holidays, but I was not much fun to be around. I was miserable. For a month I had been nauseated and puking. I had no energy and my joints seemed to constantly ache. The first trimester of my first pregnancy was proving to be difficult. I mostly sat around or slept. One evening, my dad announced he was going for a walk and wanted me to come with him. The fresh air would do me good, he insisted. Grudgingly, I pulled on my snow boots and coat and followed him outside.
It was snowing. The flakes fell softly all around. There was no wind. No typical town noise. Just the peaceful sound of snowflakes gently landing on my coat. We walked the streets in companionable silence, stopping occasionally to admire a Christmas light display. As we walked, my mind turned to the little person growing in my belly. What would it be like when he kicked for the first time? What would it be like to hold him?
Then, as we passed a nativity scene, I realized that God, thousands of years before, chose to enter the world the same way as the baby growing in me would. God, who is all-powerful and omnipresent, became an embryo that grew inside a woman and was born into the world as a helpless baby. When God entered the world, there was no room for him to be born in a house. There was no midwife present to help with his delivery. Instead, God entered the world in the lowliest of positions–a baby born in a barn.
Why on earth would God choose to enter the world as a helpless baby born in a barn? The answer is so simple, yet so profound. Love.
As Gerard Manley Hopkins put it, “This is the staggering message of Christ’s incarnation: God’s glory became dirt so that we- the scum of the earth- might become the very glory of God.” Because of His great love, He entered the world that way for us. And while it seems absurd to our human eyes, His radical love is what the Christmas story is all about.
Romans 8:38 sums it up beautifully. “Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
How do we know this to be true? Because God would never allow anything to stand in the way of His love reaching us. Through His birth as a baby, He proved He would stop at nothing to be with us. He left all the comforts of heaven, surrendered all his power to be with us, to know what it was like to be one of us. He chose to be dependent on a human mother to feed and care for him just like any other human. He learned what it was like to be cold, hungry, tired, sad, and completely reliant on others for his care. He wanted to walk with us, but he also wanted to understand what it was like to walk as one of us (Hebrews 4:14-16).
And if you follow the whole story of Immanuel, “God with us,” you know that the baby Jesus grew up, and used his time on earth to comfort the hurting, feed the hungry, and raise the dead. Then he walked right up to a tortuous cross. For our sake he carried our sin and bore our shame, dying on that cross so that he could defeat sin and death once and for all through his resurrection. His Spirit could now live among His people comforting and guiding them for all eternity. Now, truly, nothing can separate us from the love of God. His birth as a baby, his life on earth, his death at the cross, and his resurrection from the dead made sure of that. Praise God!
As the baby in my womb continued to grow, my body changed and adapted to make room for him. My husband and I began to rearrange the house to make room for his crib and the many things a baby requires. Most importantly, our hearts grew to make room for the love we would have for the new family member coming into the world. As God entered the world, there seemed to be little room for him. There was no room at the inn. There was no room in people’s hearts for a miraculous conception. Instead, Jesus’ birth was surrounded by rumor and scandal.
I wonder if people really knew who was being born that day, would they have made room? Would they have let him be born in a barn among the animals? If they knew that God was at work, would it have changed how they approached Mary and Joseph, or how they interacted with the new baby?
God is always at work in the world, but rarely in ways that make sense to us. Often his works are as inconspicuous as a baby born in a barn, but as life-changing as the love of God living among us. The question is: Do we make room for the work of God in our lives? Or do we push the miraculous gift of Immanuel, “God with us,” to the outskirts of our lives? What if we arranged our hearts and lives so that we can be molded and changed by the work God is doing in and around us?
As we celebrate Christmas, surrounded by gifts from family and friends, let us not forget the greatest gift. The gift of love born in a barn thousands of years ago. A baby born to fulfill God’s deepest desire, to live and walk with his people, to be in close relationship with his people. His deepest desire is to walk with you in love. Let us make room in our hearts and lives for the gift that will never fade or disappear…the unfailing love of God.
Nothing about Jesus’ entry into this world was as we would have expected. The Messiah, the King of kings was born in a barn, in desperate circumstances to a young girl who was a virgin. Definitely not the typical situation, right? The first people other than his parents to know of the Messiah’s arrival were a group of shepherds–the most unlikely of people to hear this good news.
Shepherds were considered societal nobodies. They were looked down upon, were poor, filthy and smelled like sheep. They lived most of their lives outside and on the outskirts of society, missing out on most of the things in life that others enjoyed. Despite this, God chose shepherds to be the first to hear the joyous news that the Messiah had finally arrived!
“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”” – Luke 2:8-14 NIV
The shepherds were going about their life and duties, trying to protect their sheep throughout the night, when the most amazing thing happened. An angel appeared out of nowhere to announce the best news ever. Can you even imagine what that would have been like for the shepherds? This wasn’t just any message brought to them by a courier, or word of mouth that eventually reached their ears long after it happened. No, this was the full red carpet experience rolled out before their very eyes. We tend to skip past the details of the messengers in this story to get to the message, but this was a wondrous and miraculous event of the shepherds experiencing the presence of God like few other people ever had.
Not only did an angel appear to them, but it says that the “glory of the Lord shone around them”–we’re talking about a supernatural phenomenon. It would’ve been similar to the glow that surrounded Moses as he came down the mountain with the ten commandments after encountering God. To add to that, a heavenly host, the armies of God, joined the party! No wonder they were in awe and terrified!
“But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.’”
Luke 2:10-11 NIV
This announcement was one that the people of God had been longing to hear. For over 700 years, since the prophet Isaiah first prophesied the coming of the Messiah, the people of God had been anxiously waiting for the Messiah to come to rescue and redeem them. The good news that they had been waiting on in faith for generations had finally arrived! What joyous news! This was the announcement of the century and they got a front row seat to it.
How blessed and honored by God these shepherds must have felt to receive this very special message from the Lord. It was the best birth announcement ever! They got an invitation straight from the heavens to witness the most miraculous event in all of history–the birth of the Son of God.
“When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.’ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him [Jesus], they spread the word concerning what had been told to them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.” – Luke 2:15-20 NIV
These lowly shepherds were chosen by God to become the first messengers of His joyous good news–that His son had come to bring joy to all people. Their joy was that they got to experience God’s good news even before they carried it to others. They received a glimpse that night that the world was really bigger and more amazing than they had even imagined. They got to see a greater reality, a window into the kingdom of God. This experience showed them that God had more for them than they even knew. Their lives would never be the same after encountering the glory of God that night and beholding their savior in the manger. I can only imagine that it was the joy they experienced that transformed them into people who proclaimed God’s amazing works and His good news that will bring joy to ALL people. For it is in Christ’s presence that we receive the fullness of true and lasting joy!
In the Christmas song “O Holy Night,” the second line says: “Long lay the world, in sin and error, pining. ’Til He appeared, and the soul felt its worth.” That night while watching their sheep, the shepherds’ world got turned upside down and they felt their worth in God. Their circumstances in life may not have changed, but they were changed. They were transformed by the coming of the Messiah. He brought them great joy that night, and we too get to experience that great joy!
It is in the moment that Jesus was born, when He appears in the world, that our souls now know their worth. How joyous that God would become human for us–to exchange heaven for earth to endure hardship, pain, loss and all this broken world offers. He came for us! God’s great love sent Jesus for our sake–that is the good news that today continues to bring us great joy!
Joy can be a difficult thing to have when life feels chaotic and busy. There are so many distractions that can steal our joy. But we can have the joy Christ brings no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in, because our worth lies securely in the fact that God chose us and loves us with a love that never fails.
Father God, we are filled with such joy remembering the very first Christmas, knowing that you brought to us the best gift of all–Jesus! Thank you for your great love for us and for sending your Son to redeem us. We are filled with such joy over the good news of Christ!
I love Christmastime. All of it. The lights, the music, the decorations, and I’ve even grown to love the cheesy Hallmark movies (I’m talking about you, Knight Before Christmas). But I especially love the peaceful, quiet moments on my own or with family, remembering when Emmanuel, God with us, arrived so long ago.
My thoughts this time of year often turn to Mary, the mother of Jesus. I so admire her faithfulness and trust in the Lord. As a mama, I can relate to how she treasured things in her heart, or how uncertain she must have felt when Jesus was little and she was learning how to be a mama for the first time.
But this year, as I read through the story of Jesus’ birth in the Bible, I noticed Joseph. While Mary has a whole song recorded in the Bible, we don’t have a single recorded word from Joseph. But his actions and character speak volumes and continually point toward faith and hope in the Prince of Peace.
In Matthew 1:18-25 we see the story unfold. Joseph, who was engaged to Mary, suddenly found himself at the center of a scandal. Mary was pregnant and the child was not his. While an angel had already revealed to Mary that what was happening was the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, Joseph had not yet received any such reassurance.
In their time and culture, a person’s virtue and honor were paramount. If Joseph stayed with Mary, people would assume he was the father, bringing shame and dishonor to himself and his family. If he stated the truth that he is not the father, the blame lands squarely on Mary’s shoulders, and Joesph would have been within his legal right to have her put to death by stoning. For both Joseph and Mary, the stakes had never been higher.
It’s not hard to imagine the depth of grief Joseph must have felt. He thought he had chosen a woman of virtue, one who loved and followed God and would have brought honor and love, and beauty to his life. And now this? His entire world had just been turned upside down. And yet, Joseph was a thoughtful and just man, faithful to God’s law and dependent on Him for wisdom and direction.
As Joseph lay in bed, no doubt unable to sleep and agonizing about what to do, he decided that he would put Mary’s honor above his own and quietly divorce her. When he finally drifted off to sleep, an angel spoke to Joesph in a dream.
At just the right time, in just the right way, God reassured Joesph that the events unfolding would not bring tragedy, but triumph–the beginning of a holy, redemptive work that would save all of humanity.
God didn’t give Joseph a lot of detail, or promise that everything would be ok. But God did comfort Joseph telling him not to be afraid. Then God told Joseph exactly what he needed to know to step forward in faith. I can only imagine the wave of relief, peace, and total wonder that must have washed over Joseph after that dream. I bet he took a long exhale when he realized this was all a part of God’s plan.
As he tried to comprehend all that he had been told, I wonder if Joesph recalled Psalm 29:11 to mind: “The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace.”
Joseph would need strength for the road ahead, strength to face the judgmental stares from friends and family who thought he had broken their marital laws, strength to love and care for Mary and baby Jesus, and strength to have faith that what the Lord said was all true. But Joseph would also need to lean into the peace that God promised as well.
The Hebrew word for peace is shalom and it means so much more than the mere absence of conflict. Shalom means to make whole, or complete. To take something that’s broken and complicated and restore it to order. Shalom can apply to damaged property being repaired, someone’s health returning after a season of illness, or a broken relationship being mended. To give shalom is to give wholeness, healing, and restoration.
As Joseph faithfully stepped into the role that God was calling him to, his trust in God’s ability to breathe order into chaos would have helped him to continue to be attentive to God’s instructions and to boldly protect, lead, and love his family well. Joseph took Mary as his wife, and just as the Lord had instructed, named the Baby Jesus.
And God was faithful. He continued to walk with Joseph and speak to him through dreams, giving him the next set of instructions, and then the next. All along the way, God continued to give Joseph strength and bless him with peace.
Maybe you are in the middle of a complicated situation that could use some healing and restoration, or maybe you are in a season that feels overwhelming and unpredictable and you need God to breathe order into your chaos. Maybe you aren’t sure how you are going to provide for yourself or your family and it’s hard to see how you’ll make it another week, let alone another month. Perhaps you feel called by God to step forward in faith to fill a role that feels impossibly hard and you wonder if you’re really the right person for the job.
I’m sure Joseph experienced all of these feelings and while God may not send angels to speak to us in dreams the way He did with Joseph, He will give you strength and bless you with peace that goes beyond anything our human minds can comprehend.
Because Jesus is the ultimate source of true “shalom”. He is the Prince of Peace. There is no limit to the wholeness and healing that He brings.
We will still be faced with difficult circumstances, but because of Jesus, our relationship with God has been restored and we are now called His children. We are heirs of an unshakable Kingdom that will never fall or fade. Because of Jesus, we can continue to put one foot in front of the other, following Him and leaning into His instructions, trusting in His ability to bring order to chaos, healing to what is broken, and wholeness where there is longing.
And as Christmas day approaches, may we remember and celebrate Jesus coming to earth to be our Prince of Peace, and look forward with eager anticipation to when he returns, and shalom will be complete.
