Drama and difficulty… the cost of the call (2)

Mary and Joseph had already paid a high cost (during pregnancy) to be the earthly parents of Jesus. Little could they have foreseen that the birth itself would also be fraught with challenges: that a political leader would call for a census, forcing them to make a long journey, right at the time when Mary was due to give birth. How uncomfortable it must have been to be nine months pregnant, to be needing to go to the bathroom all the time, and to have to undertake this overland journey on the back of a donkey! Did that perhaps contribute to making them late, so that all the accommodation was full up by the time they arrived in Bethlehem?

Imagine how stressful it must have been to be there in the busy chaos of the town, knowing that you were supposed to give birth to the Son of God at any minute, and yet you could find nowhere to stay. What a pressure it must have been for this teenage husband: was there any sense of panic that  Mary’s waters might break, right there in the dirty street?

Maybe it was because Mary was already having contractions that a concerned innkeeper let them bed down in the stable with his animals. Did he feel any compassion, or was it just another business transaction? Did he let them stay there for free... or did business take priority and he made some kind of charge for letting them take refuge in the dirty, smelly animal shed? 

Was the stable cold and draughty - like so many of our Christmas carols that suggest a winter setting? Or was it hot, sweaty and stuffy, with flies and mosquitoes buzzing around? Was the baby swaddled in rags to protect him from the cold? Or to protect him from the mosquitoes? Or just to protect his soft baby skin from the prickly straw?

Did some woman from the inn come out to help with the delivery? Or did young Joseph have to rush around fetching water and being the midwife at the birth of this special baby? What a responsibility!

Amidst all this drama and difficulty, it was no doubt a relief that the birth went well and the newborn was healthy... but it must initially have been an added challenge when a bunch of strangers turned up, wanting to see the baby. Who were these excited and noisy shepherds, disturbing the sleep of mother and baby? What an encouragement it must have been, however, to hear these simple shepherds speak of what the angels had told them. Perhaps this was the first time in the whole year that anyone, other than Mary and Joseph themselves, had acknowledged the divine origin of this baby.

Perhaps things settled down again over the next week; perhaps Bethlehem emptied again after the census was over and everyone went back home again, freeing up a room for the little family to stay at the inn while waiting for mother and baby to recover from the delivery and be strong enough to make the trip home to Nazareth.

And so it happened that they were still in Bethlehem when the time came to present the baby in the temple, at eight days old. This is how they happened to meet a godly old man called Simeon and an elderly prophetess called Anna. God had given Simeon a promise that he wouldn’t die until he had seen the Messiah; perhaps that’s why the old man had chosen to live in Bethlehem (because of Micah’s prophecy.) Simeon would not have been around if the baby had been born and presented in Nazareth. But he was in Bethlehem, and the Holy Spirit prompted him to go to the temple at exactly the right moment.

The words of Simeon and Anna must have been further encouragement for the young couple that this child of theirs truly was who they knew and believed him to be. But the words were not all positive: while Mary and Joseph were still full of wonder at the things Simeon had said, the old man turned to the young mother and began to warn her of trouble and criticism that lay in the future for her son. “And,” concluded Simeon, “A sword will pierce your own soul too!”

What a shock for this teenage mum. She knew, of course, that there would still be challenges ahead, but she probably wondered about the meaning of the old man’s words. At this point in time, no one knew yet that the Saviour was going to be rejected and going to suffer a horrible, painful death. (Isaiah had prophesied about a suffering servant, but at this point in history most people were still expecting the coming Messiah to be a mighty Deliverer, perhaps a military hero.) And so the call would continue to have a high cost for young Mary. At the time when she had to watch her firstborn suffer a  violent and traumatic death, she was a young widow, still only in her forties.

Yes, Christmas today is perceived to be all tinsel and glitter, but the true Christmas, the first Christmas, came at a much higher cost than all the partying and credit card debt. And I guess it’s the same with any “call” if we’re willing to step out and do what God asks of us: there will be countless blessings and encouragements along the way... but there will also always be a price to pay, a “cost” of some sort. 

Are we... am I... willing like Mary to carry the cost involved in seeing God’s kingdom come to the world we live in?