Thoughts for another day

December 22, 2011

Today's verse: Lk. 2:7. 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. (KJV)

(Pls. read the above before you read further. Thanks)

On a cold wintry night as the moon shone serenely over the frosty countryside, a couple made their way, not knowing which way to turn.  The woman seated on an ass had completed her term of pregnancy and was about to deliver any time.  The man was desperately looking for a place where he could provide shelter to his wife but found none.  They had trudged a long way and no inn was to take them in for they had run out of room.  His forehead creased and sweaty, he looked around even as his very young wife went into labor.  He spotted a shed, an abode of cattle and farm animals and went in.  Taking a bunch of hay, he made a bed for his wife even as she was screamed in labor pain; and as soon as she lay on the hay, her Child was born.

This could be anybody's story, but it wasn't anybody that was born that night; rather the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Owner and Supreme Commander of the universe was born there in that shed. His first cry signaled discomfort at leaving the warm womb of His mother and arriving into the cold world outside.  It was His first brush with the elements of the world which He only had created in His wisdom and there He lay wrapped in swaddling clothes in a trough from which the cattle fed.  All around him was bovine smell mixed with the dusty smell of dry hay. 

Amazing isn't it, that the King of the universe was born this way.  He was the only one who could choose how and where He was to be born and He chose to be born in a manger!  Why did He do that you may ask; He did it to signal to man that He was available to them who were rejected of men; who were poor and had no one to care for them and who had the doors of men of stature, closed to them.  The King was born in humility and poverty, loved only by His mother and her husband and no one realized the immensity of the moment of His birth which opened the way for His path to Calvary.  You know if I were there in His place I would have chosen pomp and glory at my birth on earth and thank God He isn't like me for then how could the lowly approach Him.  He left His glory behind and came, meek and mild, a helpless child and in Him God did that which He could do through no other: He gave salvation to the fallen soul of man.  Today, let this your Savior find some room in your heart too.