There's Room for Me (Part II)
Joseph's careful construction of the cradle back at home was his gift of providing love, but the Lord God's love was so much bigger and so much better.
Mary and Joseph, not by their own choice, left their home and along with it the safety Joseph had built and the security Mary had arranged. Not only that, but the tiny seeds of doubt in the back of their minds dug roots in deeply like weeds and began choking their faith that the Lord would take care of them. Sound familiar? The career plans you had laid out with precision are now a tangled mess. The friendship you had hoped for developed into an experience you hoped you would never have again. The retirement you waited so long to enjoy has brought more stress into your life than serenity. The business partnership, the family outing, the savings account, the weight loss program – left behind in a smoking heap of devastating loss. “Why, Lord? Don’t you understand how risky and dangerous it is for my perfect plan to be shred apart and thrown away? What now?”
It was well past midnight by the time Mary finished washing and wrapping her newborn son. Now she lifted him gently into his new bed – a manger. Joseph put his arm around her shoulders as they gazed at the sleeping infant and gathered into their limited minds all that had just happened and, even more so, all that would happen because of this special child. Mary touched his tiny fingers. “That cradle you spent so much time on would be real nice right now, Joseph. It just doesn’t seem right for the Son of the Most High to be lying in an animal trough filled with straw in a, well, smelly stable like this.”
Before Joseph could answer an older boy peeked his head through the door, startling the couple in their quiet moment. “Uh, sir, is, uh, there a baby in – in here?” he mumbled apologetically, self-conscious of his dirty appearance, shabby clothes, and sweaty odor from working with the sheep (not to mention his strange question). Then he saw the tiny child just as Mary covered the infant with a small blanket. Her eyes met Joseph’s and mirrored his concern as he made his way toward the door. They heard a distant call, “Over here! Zach found him!”
In the darkness Joseph could make out a handful of figures coming toward him. He gripped his wooden staff and stood at the door like a bodyguard. “Who are you?” he inquired. “What do you want here?”
“The angel told us that we’d find the Christ child in a place like this,” the shepherd boy quickly explained.
“Angel?” Joseph wondered out loud as his mind connected what the shepherd just said to his own experience with an angel months earlier. “What exactly did an angel tell you?” asked Joseph as he watched three other shepherds poke their heads through the door to peek inside.
“’Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you,” they all answered as if a choir, “He is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” The shepherd boy pointed at the child. “May we see the Savior?” he finally asked.
“Uh, y-yeah, sure,” Joseph muttered with astonishment. “So this was it. The heavenly Father had provided a bed for his Son. A special cradle as an obvious sign to these shepherds that God cared for them too,” Joseph chuckled to himself, shaking his head as he followed the shepherds to the manger. His careful construction of the cradle back at home was his gift of providing love, but the Lord God’s love was so much bigger and so much better. A love that makes room for low class laborers like shepherds as much as a couple of unknown villagers like Mary and Joseph. A love that helps Joseph and Mary see a glimpse of God’s bigger and better plan to send the Savior for all people. Joseph squeezed Mary’s hand tightly and said, “The Lord does provide. There’s no better room for the Christ child than right here, in Bethlehem, in this stable, lying in a manger and not behind closed doors in the inn, for the shepherds and, soon, the world to see.”
PRAYER: Dearest Father, how wonderful that you provided the perfect place for your own Son. Not perfect when measured by my earthly understanding, but perfect as I've seen you arrange the circumstances to make your word come true. I believe in you, and I believe that you arrange circumstances in my life, too. I believe in your one and only Son and love him as my Savior. So now, let me look in faith to see your promises all come true in him, and in me. Amen.