How Mary must have felt

Mary knew. When no one else really knew. Mary did. Perhaps she overheard the neighbors whisper. The gossip down by the well as she drew the water. She knew the child she carried was indeed the Christ child. Even after the angel visited with Joseph, he may have had doubts, but not Mary.

I remember finding out that I was pregnant with Tim. How my life changed. I gave up caffeine and sugar. I made a promise to eat more vegetables, and less fried foods. I told myself now that I had to take extra special care of myself because now I was a vessel in which another human was growing. A helpless baby. I did everything the doctor told me to do. How much more responsible Mary must have felt. Maybe she didn’t bound down the stairs like she normally would, or perhaps she didn’t lug that big jug of water as she did every day without help. Because she knew. Not only was she carrying a helpless baby, but this was the Christ! This was the salvation of the world – the King! How overwhelmed she must have felt. As her belly swelled and the Child kicked for the first time I wonder, did it make it even more real to her, as it did to us? As I think of my own pregnancy and the thought of how young I was and the thought of carrying and taking care of a child almost made me hyper-ventilate, could you imagine the overwhelming thought of carrying the Christ!? I wonder if maybe she lay awake at night with her arms cradling her belly – praying over her child, whispering promises in the dark.

And that long donkey ride. Could some of her questions have been, “what happens now?” “Will this ride hurt the baby?” The faith it must have taken. She must have thought “This is the Messiah, so everything has to work out ok. – right?” Then those devastating words “there is no room at the inn.” What now? What about the women who usually help with deliveries? Panic may have seized her mind with the thought of “What will I do? There really isn’t time” How heartbroken Mary must have felt right then. And then to walk into the barn – the delivery room, the King’s first nursery.

How sanitary we’ve made it. To look at today’s Nativities they look so….. well clean. I’ve shoveled barns before. I know what they smell like. There is no sweet smell of hay inside a dirty barn. There is the smell of dung, and of urine and of animal. There is no evidence that Joseph had time to even lay down a fresh layer of hay for Mary to lie on. So she gave birth in the most unsanitary of conditions.

Maybe in-between contractions she thought of all the promises she made to her child, to God. How she had promised to take care of Him, and bind up his boo-boos, protect him from those who would hurt him, or who would make fun of him.

Finally his birth was here. Just she, Joseph and the animals were there to welcome the King into the stench of our world.

His first cry was in a filthy barn. His first robe was rags. Do you think maybe as Mary pulled him to her breast to nurse that she whispered to him, “I wanted to give you so much more?” and as a tear splashed down on his face, did she feel like a failure of a mom. “I mean it’s only been 20 minutes and so far my track record isn’t so good.” Did she whisper to God “have I missed you somewhere; I mean this is the King, the Messiah, this is Your Child?”

Do you think 33 years later when His blood splashed upon her cheek at the foot of the cross that those words and promises came back to her?

How sanitary we’ve made His birth, our lives. How we forget that by not being born in a Palace he does not pull us up to where he is, but by being born in the muck and the mire, the dirt and the stench, among urine and dung, he came down to where we are so that we don’t have to reach up to grasp Him, we merely have to reach out and He’s there.

This Christmas let’s not sanitize and “make pretty” the conditions our Savior was born in. Let’s be real about not only His birth, but His death. Let’s strip away the cleanliness of how we visualize his birth and his death, so we can strip away the dust off our own sin and begin by being real with Him. And if we are real about his birth and death we can begin to be real about who are and how much we are in need of Him. We will actually admit that we are spiritually poverty stricken without Him. Every day and every way. Scripture says that the Shepherds made known the statements told to them, but Mary pondered them in her heart. She gathered up all of the emotions, all of the incidents – from the angel’s announcement, to the very smell of the delivery room. She grabbed each memory as costly jewels, storing them in a treasure box that had been inscribed on her heart forever. In the coming year, let apathy not be a part of our lives, but let our passion for Him be forever burning strong.

Forever worshipping At His Feet