The 12 Posts of Christmas, Day 11: Stable Reflections

Inside: What was it like to travel far away from home, only to find shelter in a stable? To give birth in such humble surroundings? I wonder. . .

Can you imagine traveling for days by donkey, subject to climate and road conditions, very pregnant? No Holiday Inns along the way, not even a Motel 6. And once you get to the “big city”–that being Bethlehem–you can’t find a place to stay. As an afterthought, an innkeeper tells you there’s room in a stable out back. If you don’t mind the animals.

This couple is young. Desperate. They have no other choice. But I wonder. . .

As they went from one inn to the next, and the contractions came closer together, did Mary think to herself, This is God’s Son. Surely He will provide a nice place for us to stay now!

Was she disappointed with God’s choice of birthplace? Sharing a room, if you could call it that, with cows and donkeys, the sweet smell of hay mingling with manure. Her Child’s first cradle a hay box. Strips of cloth to wear instead of footie pajamas. No doctor or nurse. Not even a midwife. Just an anxious young husband unfamiliar with female issues.

Perhaps I look at it with modern, western eyes. Maybe Mary was just thankful to have a place to lie down and a kind husband to help her through this unfamiliar, painful, joyful experience. But a stable?

And yet, this crude setting with all the familiar characters and animals has endeared the story of Christ’s birth to millions of people over hundreds of years. If they’d gotten a room in the inn, would it have been as special?

I wonder.