Do you have a nativity scene in your home? Sometimes they come as advent calendars now with a different figure to add each day in the run up to Christmas. When I had my children small, we had a nativity and I remember often glancing at it as the preparations got more intense and the juggling of rehearsals for school plays, cooking for fayres and dressing for parties got more frequent and fraught and thinking how still and calm everything seemed in the stable.
I’m sure it wasn’t like that at all in reality. It would have been dirty, smelly, unhygienic, dangerous. Infection could set in; the animals might trample on the child. Politically things were unsafe and scary. Personally, Mary’s reputation was on the line; Joseph was working through his doubts. Bethlehem was busy with strangers and commotion; the shepherds were phased by strange visitors; tyrant King Herod was threatened by talk of a new rival king. Who in their right mind would have a baby born in such circumstances?
Well, God did – for you. Not just any baby – His own son, taking on the body and being of humanity so that you would know how much He loves you. If that’s not enough, He sent him to suffer a horrific death so that You could be reconciled to God with your sins dealt with.
So, sometime over this Christmas, when you look at a nativity scene or card, be still, just for a moment and know that He is God. And He loves you.