No Special Privileges

There was nothing silent about that night!

I’m awed that when God became a man, He didn’t demand special privileges.

The earthy birth stories of the gospels vigorously refute the sanitized scenes of church nativity pageants and religious Christmas cards. There was nothing silent about that night.

The crush and confusion of streets choked with fearful travelers trying to avoid any suspicion of disregarding Caesar Augustus’s cruel and insensitive order register for his whimsical census.

The desperate dialogue between Joseph and his betrothed: “The baby’s almost here. Where will we stay?” “I don’t know. Every room is taken. You see the ‘No Vacancy’ signs, don’t you?”

The rush to the barn, the quick look, the hurried cleaning: “Find some clean straw, unsoiled by these animals.”

The mother of God screams in pain as He, like all others, squeezes through the birth canal.

And then, there He is…

And there they are. Penniless, miles from home, soldiers in the streets, shepherds gawking, running out in the streets telling everyone about their baby, and then back they come singing loudly and asking their awkward questions.

“How long have you two been married?”

There would be no special privileges for the Son of God on that day or any day to follow. Born in shame to a humble Jewish teenager in a non-descript little town in a conquered country, Jesus of Nazareth’s first day in Bethlehem signaled the beginning of God’s great redemptive plan to all Creation—visible and invisible: The self-emptied God who humbled Himself to save the world He loves just showed up.

I’m asking God’s Spirit to fill me with my Savior’s Incarnational selflessness this Christmas:

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who…made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:5-7).There was nothing silent about that night!