Advent
Meditation
December 9th
17.
Difficult Times in God's Will
Luke
2:5-7 He went there to register
with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a
child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born,
and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths
and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the
inn.
We
thought yesterday about the feeling of being trapped in a machine, the
machine of circumstances beyond our control. Mary and Joseph are in
that machine and it requires them to leave the place where they were
living and go to Bethlehem ,
for no reason apart from the whim of the emperor!
Now
the only problem about all this, is that everybody else is doing this
as well, and so Bethlehem,
being the home town of King David,
was the home town of lots of people descended from this family line.
There are lots of people travelling back to Bethlehem!
And yes, you can guess it, it's always the same, the authorities hadn't
thought about this, or hadn't cared about it, but where was everyone
to stay? Go to the Inn.
Right! But unfortunately several dozen other people got there before
us and so there's no room.
Fortunately
a kindly innkeeper, or more likely inn-keeper's wife, sees Mary's state
and allows them to bed down in the stable round the back. It's pretty
awful, but it's better than nothing. And then, Oh Joseph, there was
a pain, and another, I'm having the baby. Just when you thought things
couldn't get worse! A young girl and it's her first child. How would
you have felt? A husband with a young wife who's having a baby that
isn't yours; how would you have felt? This is not a good day!
Have
you caught something of the picture? This is not a fun day! Looked on
from a purely human standpoint, from the standpoint of Mary and Joseph,
there have definitely been better days!!! We tend to forget all this
when we see the children acting it out in the school nativity play.
From a human standpoint, what has just happened? Another baby has just
arrived in the world. Goodness knows how many other babies arrived in
the world on that day or night. Ah, but that's the point; this isn't
just another baby. What we have missed in the awfulness of these circumstances
is that God has just appeared in the world in human form for the very
first time ever.
Now
that is such a staggering statement that it leaves most of us spluttering
over the impossibility of it, or over our incapability to grasp it,
but that, the Bible very clearly tells us, is what happened! In a way
that totally denies our intellect, somehow, this tiny defenceless baby
lying wrapped up in a manger, in the straw, is God. Is he totally God?
Well yes he is, but somehow not, because God is all-powerful, all knowing,
all-everything and this tiny baby – for the moment at least – isn't,
or certainly doesn't appear to be! That's what makes this a mystery,
because this little baby that is God in human form, is going to grow
up and show himself to be very different from us, is going to provide
us with so much evidence that, for any open, thinking person, there
is no room for doubt – this is God! But he doesn't look like it at the
moment. The lesson? When God leads you into apparently small and ordinary
events, even seemingly bad-news-day events, be careful, they may have
earth shattering consequences – you just don't know with God! What may
seem a nightmare may turn out to be the most staggeringly wonderful
day of your life!
If
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tony.thomas@rochfordcc.co.uk
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