And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. Luke 2:6

Mary is becoming round as can be. Her ankles are swollen, she can’t see her feet beyond the baby bump in front of her. She struggles to stand after sitting for a while. She can’t sleep for all that kicking inside her, the Lord ready to escape the confines of her womb and find out what this earthly world is really all about. And Joseph tells her they have to travel some 90 miles to Bethlehem for a census. “Are you kidding?” she must have asked. “I have to walk or ride a donkey for how long?”

We can’t be exactly sure how long the pair was on the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem, but in Mary’s condition, there was little enjoyment in that trip. Many of us have been exactly where Mary was at that time, ripe with pregnancy, ready to have the pain of birth behind us and to see the face of that tiny child for whom we have waited all those months. And most of us would have been older, more seasoned to the ways of womanhood.

Yet here was Mary, a woman by the standards of her day but a child to our way of thinking, ready to depart with Joseph on a journey that would lead to the greatest story ever told, a birth that would stand above all others as the dividing line in human history. The stage is set. God’s plan for our redemption, a plan that was formulated before time began, has been set in motion. Nothing or no one can stop it.

But there’s even more challenge in His plan than the couple can possibly know. Would they ever have thought that every boarding house in the city would be filled and that not a single innkeeper would try and make room for two more weary travelers, one so heavily burdened that birth was obviously imminent? Who could possibly imagine such a thing happening to the Son of God.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and we will call him Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14

But that’s the thing…even though the prophets had foretold of a birth that would change the world as they knew it, everyone expected that it would happen with the full honor and dignity afforded a king. A royal birth attended by the best care available at the time. A child clothed in the softest and best fabric in the city. A child admired by all the important people of the day.

No one would have believed that a king would spring from a virgin teen, be wrapped in stable rags, and laid in a feed trough as animals and a surrogate dad stood by.

God really does work in mysterious ways. I wonder what the innkeeper thought when he realized what had happened that night in his stable or if he ever knew. Oh sure, the shepherds were proclaiming all over town that a special baby had been born to save the world, but who believes a band of dirty, raggedy old shepherds. Bystanders likely chalked their claims up to an abundance of wine around the campfire. And angels surely don’t light up the sky to visit shepherds. Or do they?

Jesus didn’t leave His home in the heavens to coddle the wealthy, he came to heal each of us of the ills we try to carry on our own shoulders. He spent most of His time with the poor, the unwashed, the sick. Every one of us is His brother or sister but only a few will acknowledge that relationship and accept the gift He offers. Most of the population was then and is now too busy to even notice.

Was Mary ready for all that lay ahead? Probably not, but she never waivered from her commitment to God. She delivered the hope of the world that improbable night so long ago. In the company of smelly animals and equally smelly shepherds, she birthed, fed, and lovingly wrapped her newborn baby boy who looked just like us, because He was human, just like us. But time would reveal that He was so much more. The journey was just beginning…..

When all the plans were in place and the world was finally ready, the clock struck Christmas, and Jesus was born.

Emily E Ryan, Walking with Jesus Devotions for Advent and Christmas 2024.