Difficult Christmas

The "firsts" are difficult. The first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, the first birthday without a loved one is rough. I usually do not like getting all the Christmas decorations out of the attic and putting them up anyway, but I really did not like it this year. So many ornaments were made by or for Macayla. Just trying to decide if we should hang her stocking or not was tough. We did not have to shop for any presents for her. She will not be here in the morning to see (or more recently, hear) the gifts being unwrapped. It stinks.

But we often forget how difficult the very first Christmas was for Mary and Joseph. Mary started her pregnancy out of wedlock, which would have made her a target for ridicule, if not stoning. While pregnant, she had to travel approximately 100 miles on donkey over rough terrain to make it to Bethlehem for the census. Some critics say the Bethlehem story was added by Matthew and Luke to bolster the idea that Jesus fulfilled prophecy. They claim a pregnant woman would not have taken a chance traveling like that as it could be very dangerous. They ignore the fact that staying where she was could prove to be dangerous as people may pelt her with stones for what they perceived as adultery! Childbirth is a hard and dangerous process we take for granted more than they did. There was no NICU or emergency OR to save mom and baby from complications. In fact, Jennifer would not have survived Macayla's delivery 100 years ago. Mary faced these dangers and public humiliation. Had it not been for angelic intervention, Joseph would have abandoned her.

Their journey was full of hardship and potential disaster. What would have been a two hour car ride for us, lasted several days for them, and possibly longer if Joseph had to stop along the way and work to finance their journey. Once they reached Bethlehem, there was not a comfortable hospital suite to deliver Jesus. There was no vacation home or condo in which to stay. No, they had to first stay in the place where animals were kept. Not the warm, country barn type stable we typically picture, but probably a place akin to a dugout basement or cave. They were poor and faced quite a bit of peril that first Christmas. Even after Jesus' birth, the Magi later came and we see that King Herod had plans to kill all the male toddlers to prevent another king from rising up and taking the throne from his heirs.

How often we complain about the little things of Christmas! The crowds, the wrapping, the decorating, the travel, etc. But celebrating Christmas with a gaping hole in your family puts that stuff in perspective. Seeing how the Savior came into the world also puts it in perspective. This was no cute nativity scene, but a harsh and dangerous entry into the world. God became flesh and dwelt among us in poverty, pain and persecution, not a palace. He is not aloof to our situations, but has identified with them fully. He knows what it is like to go through those firsts without a loved one. He even provided the first and only Christmas that led to the first and only Easter. Now we get to celebrate them each year.

Merry Christmas!