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There’s the story of a woman who had quite the adventure giving birth to her first child. For census purposes, she had to go far from home to another city to give birth. Traveling in this area was kind of treacherous, so the journey was slow. When she and her soon-to-be husband got there, everything was shutdown, so they had to find the next available place to be. Unfortunately options were limited. She might as well have given birth in a cave outside the city.
Well, she actually did give birth in a cave outside the city. Again, it was the only thing available, and it was far from ideal.
Some of you may have guessed that this is the story of the Nativity of our Lord and that is was Mary giving birth. To some, it may have sounded more like a story that could have come from the past two years of the Pandemic we have been living in.
It often feels like there are dangers all around us right now, especially since many of these dangers are invisible. Because of our fears, it’s important to have an even clearer sense of the dangers and concerns Mary herself would have faced. Her pregnancy itself was a danger in her time, one that she could have been put to death for. Even though she did nothing wrong, for she was following God’s will as we spoke of this past Sunday, she nevertheless had a lot to fear.
She and Joseph also had a long way to go from one end of the country almost all the way to the other. Even now with cars and buses, it is a long trip. But Mary and Joseph didn’t have those advantages. The way down itself would have been a risk for its length and other issues like food and water as well as all the dangers and fears on a journey to a place far off and away from home.
Childbirth itself would have been a danger, more so for giving birth in an unsterile cave. In my own travels to Bethlehem, I learned that the manger scene as we have come to know it probably resulted from the likelihood that Mary would have given birth surrounded by other people’s animals in that cave, and that the manger itself, a food trough for the animals, would have somehow been the best place to lay the baby Jesus after he was born. This is far from a sterile environment, and as we know from our own day and age, a sterile environment does not free us from all the risks and possible complications of childbirth.
Why then did Mary do this? The simple answer is that she had hope.
We saw a great deal of Mary’s hope as she broke into song with the Magnificat last Sunday. We also see the reason for that hope today in Gospel lesson. That hope comes from the message of shepherds, which they in turn received from the angels.
The message is this: the baby born to Mary is no simple child. This is the Christ, the Messiah. This child has come to be a savior not just to His own people, but to the whole world.
Mary would have already known this from the angel Gabriel, though we are told here that she treasured the words, the words of the shepherds, in her heart.
The hope of the Christ Child, and what He was to bring, would have been enough to get Mary through the hard times. It was the hope of all that had been prophesied before, and it was the hope of all that would come after. It was the hope of everything that God had promised to bring.
That hope was enough to get Mary through. It is still enough for us today. The hope of the Christ Child is the hope that the bad times will come to an end. It is the hope that we and our very lives can be transformed. It is the hope that this world with all its ups and downs will not be the end.
If you find yourself swept away with all the fears and dangers, the hope of Jesus is the answer. It is what can help us continue on the way, even when all seems lost. It is what can give us the strength we need when we are at our weakest. It is what can finally bring us the transformation and renewal of life that we seek and so desperately need.
My hope for you this Christmas is simply that you will have hope: hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. That is what He came into this world to bring, and that is what we really celebrate this day.