Luke has begun his story with two miraculous pregnancies, and the second has been flagged as more important than the first. The parent(s) were more enthusiastic, it is more miraculous (no father!) and while one is going to be a prophet when he grows up the other is, well, destined for greater things. What was it that Gabriel said?
"He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!"
Oh yes, that. Just imagine being the mother of that. It's bad enough these days, knowing whether you're going to have a boy or a girl. Imagine if ultrascans could be that sophisticated?
"This one's going to be an engineer."
"Mrs Smith, I'm sorry to have to tell you but your daughter is going to be an alcoholic."
I'm not sure I'd want that pressure before the birth. It's bad enough worrying about the futures after they've been born!
And of course, to add to the pressure, there's the political turbulence. What sort of world are these boys going to grow up in? One where the Empire can demand you leave home for weeks just because the Emperor wants to count you all.
And for Mary, there would have been another dimension. She was now "obviously pregnant." Why's that a problem? Well, she and Joseph have just got married, and it's perfectly clear to anyone who can do the maths, that the baby was conceived out of wedlock. These days, teenage pregnancy raises frowns and tuts - back then, women could be stoned as adulterers. Maybe that's why Joseph decided to take Mary with him. Apparently only Joseph had to travel to his home town, no stricture was put on Mary, but he felt it was better to take her away from the disapproving gaze of the neighbours. Better for her own safety.
Things aren't going so smoothly for this second miracle baby. And it gets worse when Mary goes into labour. No proper place to stay. Why? We can only guess, and it probably wasn't as bad as having to give birth in a stable. That's a layer of legend that we've added to the Christmas story. Joseph would have sought out family members to stay with, and normally every house would have a guest room, but for some reason that wasn't available for them. Maybe other visitors had got there first. So Mary, Joseph and the baby were bedded down in the main family room, which would have had animals at one end, people at the other. Hence the manger.
Back to the words of Gabriel. Read them again. "very great...David's throne...everlasting kingdom..." And swing the camera lens back to the small, two roomed house, already accommodating an extra family in the guest room, and the extra lodgers having to make use of the animals' space to make their baby comfortable.
What is God playing at?
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