It has been
a long day and I am tired. The sleep and rest that await me will be so welcome.
I have traveled over 250 miles. The car seat got uncomfortable. I got sleepy,
and that is not a comfortable feeling when you are driving 75 miles per hour on
an interstate. I looked forward to the time when it would all be over.
I can only
imagine Mary, the mother of Jesus, must have felt even worse at the end of that
last day of her pregnancy. Scripture does not tell us how long she and Joseph
were in Bethlehem before Jesus was born. It does not give us the details of
where they stayed until the time of her delivery arrived.
All we are
told is she was pregnant when they left Nazareth. She made that long journey to
Bethlehem either walking or on the back of a slowly rocking donkey. Either way
it could not have been easy.
Then there
was the wait in a strange village away from family. Joseph would be trying to
find a place to stay, taking care of census business for the family, and trying
to find a way to make a living to support his family until all this government registration
stuff was finished. Through it all he would have been concerned about his
young, pregnant wife.
During the
daylight hours Mary may have felt the contractions begin and slowly get more
regular and more intense. The foretold event would soon take place. She would
give birth to a son, the Son of God. Already under stress of all that had been happening
in the previous nine months and earlier, she can only be described as tired, so
very tired. She just wanted those last hours to pass quickly. She just wanted
to rest.
Luk
2:5 He went to register with Mary, who
was promised in marriage to him. She was pregnant,
Luk
2:6 and while they were in Bethlehem,
the time came for her to have her baby.
Luk
2:7 She gave birth to her first son,
wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger---there was no room for them to
stay in the inn.
Joseph had
not been able to find a suitable place for Mary to have the privacy and comfort
she deserved in which to bring this special Child into the world, only an
isolated stable. They would be out of the worst of the wind, but there would be
none of the comforts of a human habitation.
Mary was
tired. She would have wanted more, but in those hours she knew only she was
about to have her baby. She wanted to have a healthy baby, she wanted Joseph to
be by her side, and she wanted it all to be over.
Then it was.
As so often happens, the pain and all the discomfort were soon forgotten. Mary
held in her arms the promised Child, the fulfillment of prophecy, Emmanuel –
God with us. The weariness fell away, and Mary knew the rewards of having been
the maiden who was favored by God above all women.
Miracles don’t
always occur when we think they should. Then again sometimes God’s timing
matches up with ours in the most wonderful way. Birth is always a beautiful
miracle. When it is the birth of the Son of God who is to be the Savior of the
world, it is one of the best miracles of all.
Sometimes
miracles are that big, big enough to change history. Mary experienced that
kind. She also experienced the smaller kind that can mean so much to all of us.
They are the small ones like a good night’s sleep after a long day of travel,
or the rest that comes when a baby is born after a long day of labor.
On Christmas
Eve may we take the time to thank God for the big miracles that change the
history of the world and our part in it. Let us also remember to thank him for
the small ones like the gift of rest.
