If I am going to get the sheep and the wise men all in place by Christmas several things must happen the Christ child will need to be born a little early in our Christmas story. Yet it is the story of Christmas that brings about the hope to the world that God loves us still. Though it been over 2000 years since He was born, his birthday still reminds us of how precious that gift of a baby boy really was to the world. God sent signs through scripture of how to know the Messiah. One of them was that He be born in Bethlehem. How God took Mary and Joseph on a journey of a life time. I have to wonder did the though ever occurred to Mary how would she get to Bethlehem? Caesar that year sent out a decree that the known world was to be tax and not only tax but they had to return to their homeland or family linage. Whose tribe was he from and who Father and ancestry was Joseph. King David was from Bethlehem, and his children would return to the place of his birth. All of King’s David family would be there. Mary family knew of the virgin birth and now it would be Joseph turn to tell his family. David by trade was a shepherd. And they would be told. Yet stop with that thought for a day and go on with the stable.

A stable does not seem like a good place to give birth of a king. No royal pillows, or mattress would this baby be born upon. Instead he would be laid in a bed of straw. In a manger. Not a place of nobility for a kingly line of Israel, but a noble place for Savior to lay his head. Joseph had searched for a better location, and knowing Mary time had come to have a child found the driest warmest place he could for her to give birth. A place perhaps a woman without a husband should give birth. After all she was only betroth to Joseph at this point. He had not slept with her for she was still yet a virgin. Something to think about the status of Mary and the place the Savior was born. Though Christians rank Mary status as noble, her status was only noble to those that knew why she was pregnant. Yet the Gentile nation moral laws would not of cared one bit about her marital status or the fact she was pregnant. It would have been the leaders of Israel, the religious people stares that heard the rumors of this child to be born, that perhaps would make this stable birth less appealing. Yet the reason a great king of Israel was born in a stable had nothing to do with his mother status but because there was no room at the inn. Travelers had come to pay their taxes and Bethlehem was crowded. Mary status had no bearing on this child birth. Yet Mary brought forth God’s only begotten Son and laid him in a manger, a humble place to begin his earthly ministry to the world. People would come to see this Christ child based on prophesy not on words of man but words of God and his angels. The declaration of promise coming from God’s messengers called a star and angels. God had his Son born in a manger, a humble beginning not a place of wealth. No doubt that stable may have been crowd with other travelers, and as Mary went to the most private area she could to give birth, he pain of child birth came fast upon her. She took the material she had prepared for the event and wrapped him in the swaddling clothes and seeing the manger full of fresh straw laid him there where it was warm. She laid back and rested watching her baby, the world gather around. Looking and wondering at this precious sight.

A manger becoming a royal bed for a king. King David his forefather spent time in the field watching sheep. He wrestle bears and lions. Yet no one thought this was a bad beginning for him. Yet one thinks of a stable it does not seem like a place for a king. Our humility is part of who we are. No humility and the rags to riches story seems not so glamorous. Yet no where does it say Jesus family was poor. It only says there was no room in the inn. Mary a mother of the Messiah of royalty, yet born to a carpenter who took his mother on command from God almighty to be his future wife and to protect her. He was skilled carpenter, and tradesmen. No doubt his hands had no trouble find work. A hammer project there and new table to be made, would give Jesus a human career. Had Joseph helped his young wife during her delivery. Had seen and moved that manger close to her so that baby would have a place to lay. Had he even thought of making cradle till this point. He had talent to do so, yet a manger was provided for Jesus’ first cradle. I can do a lot of speculation but it will not change the fact there was no room in the inn. God’s special place for Jesus to be born preplanned and designed for his child in a town called Bethlehem.

Dear Heavenly Father thank you for giving prophesy where your child would be born as well as giving hope to the world by your Son’s birth in a stable. In Jesus precious name, Amen.