the best he had

I've heard a lot of sermons on Luke 2:6-7, and read a lot of devotionals too, and as far as I can remember all of them have had the same take on the fact that there was no room in the inn. Jesus was born into a cold, hard world where he wasn't welcome, pushed out to the barn by a hard-hearted innkeeper and a bunch of inconsiderate patrons.

That's probably the correct interpretation, since there seems to be consensus, but I tend to see a different view. To me, this offer of the stable seems like a generous act, like the best an overwhelmed man could do.

Joseph and Mary got word of the census, and then needed a few days to get supplies and animals ready for the 100-mile walk from Nazareth to Bethlehem. That trek would have taken several days, especially with a very pregnant girl, so it's no wonder that all the Bethlehem natives who were closer or had simpler logistics got to town first. By the time Jesus' parents showed up, there were probably more people in Bethlehem than there had been in decades.

That's why the innkeeper seems a lot like me. Here comes Jesus (or the church, or a neighbor), when I'm as busy as I've been in a long time. My resources are all used up, and it's all I can do to keep up with what I already have on my plate. But I don't want to say no, I can't say no, so I look around, find the best answer that's left, and offer that.

Instead of the worst room in the place, is it possible the innkeeper offered the best he had available? Maybe he looked at the exhausted woman and desperate husband and thought, "These poor people. I can't just send them down the road." Instead of disappointment, could Joseph have responded the way I hope people do when I'm offering the best of what I have left? Could he simply have been grateful?

"While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them." Luke 2:6-7. Mother and baby were safe and warm, and there was a bed of straw for everyone. Not glamorous, true, but if their needs were met, then enough.

And isn't that one of the key lessons of Jesus' walk on earth? That rather than chasing after excess, we should be grateful when we have enough?

what a plan!

Often I'm amazed at the intricacy of God's work.

Way back at the beginning of humankind, after Adam and Eve defied God and listened to Satan, God announced his plan to restore us. All through the Old Testament his prophets foretold the coming of the Messiah. They named names and told of places, and the prophecies included the little town of Bethlehem.

But then God chooses a couple from Nazareth, 100 miles away, to parent His son. Oops! It's the details that'll get you, right? Great choice for parents, probably, but wrong town. At least that's what I'd think if it were a human choice. But God has this detail covered too:

"In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child." Luke 2:1-5.

It's time for the prophesy to be fulfilled in Bethlehem, so God uses the vanity and pride of one of the most powerful pagans in the world to move Joseph and Mary to the place he wanted them to be. Caesar wants to put a number to his vast power and his wide-ranging conquest; Caesar could care less about Jewish prophesies or even the Jewish God. But he's working for God nonetheless. He doesn't have a choice.

That is wonderfully reassuring. What God wills in this world will be done, not just by his followers, but by any humanist or atheist or Satanist that God chooses to use. All of the shrill naysaying and disrespect shown to God by the most evil in this world amount to nothing. If God needs something for the good of his people, even the most foul-mouthed, immoral, vicious person on the globe will do exactly that.

I can rest confidently in every word of God's promises, because at the right time every part of the world will bend to God's will.

leap of faith

It's hard for me to get a handle on Joseph. Was he just a good guy doing his duty, or a committed husband supporting the woman he loved? Or did he passionately pursue a vision of salvation he caught from the angel?

Luke 2 just says that Joseph was going to divorce Mary until an angel told him not to in a dream. And then (v24-25) "When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus."

Joseph did his duty, and until the baby came he served his wife without getting much in return. What did he think? Was he resigned? Resentful? Excited? Zechariah and Mary and Elizabeth all are recorded as singing wonderful praise songs; Joseph just wakes up and does what he's told.

Joseph was the first person in the world who had to make a decision about Jesus. He may have been the only one who had to make two decisions: Am I going to accept that my pregnant wife really did conceive by the Holy Spirit, that this baby is really God? And do I accept my son Jesus as my only hope for salvation?

Makes me think about my own decision about Jesus. Yes, I accept him as my only hope. But do I live out my obedience grudgingly, dutifully, like a set of chores? Or do I sing my gladness at the new life he's given me?

Obedience and joy ought to be the same thing. May it be more and more that way for me.

childhood fears

There's a fear I had as a child that I never really got rid of: Jesus comes, and I'm either doing something I shouldn't be or something completely frivolous. All the good kids who are reading their Bibles or singing hymns or busy helping Mom get to go to heaven, but because I'm down at the park instead of cleaning my room, I get left behind.

If only, I would think, there was some way to know, some early warning so that I would have maybe a day or two to get my act together. It's why I hated the parable of the ten virgins. Remember, the foolish ones had to run and buy oil, and then found the door locked when they got back? And then (Matt. 25:11-13) they shouted " 'Lord, Lord, open the door for us! ' But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I don't know you. ' Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour."

Two things I struggled with as a child about waiting for Jesus. First, it takes so long! You can't stay ready forever. It's like getting dressed in your church clothes and then sent outside until Mom and Dad are ready to leave; after a few minutes of walking in circles, you just have to get on the rope swing.

And second, sometimes I don't want Jesus to come just yet. There's a lot of good stuff that I haven't done. And maybe a little bad stuff I'm not ready to leave behind.

Like I said, I'm not really past it yet, even at a point where my kids think I'm old and there are little people who call me grandpa. So, once again, part of my Advent prayer is this: "Lord Jesus, help me to long for your coming."

peace

Advent 12 - peace

Back in the decade or so that I sang with a quartet, my favorite song may have been a number called "In the Holy Mountain of the Lord," based on Isaiah 11. It was a great arrangement, with gorgeous harmonies and those wonderful words describing a world at peace:

The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the cobra's den,
the young child will put its hand into the viper's nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:6-9)

Someday the Republicans will sit with the Democrats, and liberals and conservatives won't have anything more to fight about. Jews and Arabs and Americans will see our similarities and ignore our differences. Border security won't be a thing anymore, because no one will want to hurt anyone else, and with plenty for all and no hoarding, there will be no homeless or displaced people. On that day, if I cared about Facebook at all, I could scroll through without seeing a single snarky meme (yeah, I know, they're so good when they zing those other stupid people.)

Peace. It probably won't appeal to people who dream of being that good guy with a gun who gets to shoot a terrorist, but it sure sounds good to me. And it's why we wait for Jesus.

save me

Of all the characters in the Christmas story, Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, seems most like me. I blogged earlier about his doubt. Today I read his celebration song in Luke 1:67-79. And I saw something that too often is present in my own prayers.

The first half of Zechariah's prophecy reads like a battle cry: " . . . salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us . . ." (v71) and " . . . to rescue us from our enemies and from the hand of those who hate us . . ." (v74). It's only when he gets to verse 77, three-fourths of the way through, that he finally says, ". . . to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins."

In the context of the times, Zechariah was with a lot of Jews in wanting to be saved from the occupation of the Romans and the persecution of the pagan nations to the east. And this statement of his is included in scripture as prophecy, so I'm not saying he's wrong.

What strikes me, though, is how often I pray for relief from the hard things in my life. I pray for my house to sell quickly. I pray for relief from my cold symptoms. I pray for good roads as I have to drive. I pray for an important meeting to go well.

And usually, somewhere in my 10 minutes or so of praying I put in a sentence about forgiving my sins and strengthening me to resist temptation.

Like too many men at the time Jesus was born, I look forward to all the humanists being proved wrong, all the atheists having to confront their mistake, all those dummies who just can't see the truth (about refugees or gun control or morality or football teams) to have to acknowledge I was right all along.

I don't long as fervently for the day I won't succumb to temptation, the day I'll stop disappointing my Savior as well as my friends and family. Because really, deep inside, I feel like I'm doing pretty well. If we could just get the rest of the world straight, things would be pretty good.

I have to be careful to long for a personal savior, not a political conqueror. To do that, I need to remember that I'm the one that needs fixing

unwillingness

I often feel like I'm not doing enough. It's the old "I want to serve the Lord fulltime" thing that I think all Christians go through, as if we weren't already. My brother Eric is fulltime in missions and I both admire and envy him.

But sometimes then I imagine God coming to me and saying, "There's this thing you're going to do for me that will completely change your life. It will mess up your relationships, and all your friends are going to think you had a mid-life crisis. And it starts immediately."

Wait, what? No, this isn't a good time. We're building a house, and I have things I need to wrap up at work. Can't it wait until the grandkids grow up?And what about my retirement? I don't have enough put away yet.

The angel came to Mary, the eager young bride-to-be, and said (Luke 1:28), "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." And guess what? You're going to be pregnant, and people will talk about you, and your future husband will want to divorce you. You won't get that precious first year of being a newly-wed that's a part of your culture. You're going to be a mom simultaneously with being a bride. And this baby will grow up and break your heart.

Highly favored, to be chosen by God for his work, especially this great, precious work of nurturing the baby God turned flesh. It wouldn't have looked like a blessing, and at times I'm sure it didn't feel like it - just read the Gospels.

Mary was waiting for the Messiah in a general sense, like all of her people, but she wasn't looking like Simeon and Anna were. She was looking for her wedding day. But she replied, "I'm willing," and her service to all of us is remembered throughout the world every day.

Lord, I'm willing too. Help me in my unwilling-ness.

unbelief

The hardest thing about being a believer is all the times I struggle to believe.

Sometimes I get muddled up in the fossil record and the scientific interpretation and I wonder about the creation story. I cringe at the way the Gospel can sound so stridently hateful when reduced to picket signs or Twitter posts. I grapple with doctrines like election and wish it could be another way. Sometimes I want to be them, the world, because they seem nicer than us, the church.

That's why I always feel for Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. When he got word of the impending miracle of his coming son, he questioned the news. And this is what he got (Luke 1:19-20): "The angel said to him, 'I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.'"

If I was struck dumb (silent, not stupid - I'm struck stupid all the time) every time I questioned something God revealed to me, our house would be a lot quieter. It doesn't seem fair.

But for nine more months the secret of this particular phase of God's Great Rescue Plan would remain a secret. Until the day of the baby boy's naming, Zechariah wouldn't be able to speak. It's like his own little Advent time, his period in the wilderness. Waiting for the day his voice would return.

It's interesting to me to think that, in a way, what we wait for at Christmas is our Voice. Jesus is not only the voice that speaks to us of God, he's the voice that speaks to God of us. He makes our prayers perfect, and argues for us in that great heavenly court. My stupid dumb mouth can't do a thing to help me. But my Advocate (hmmm, a word used to mean lawyer, a word whose roots go back to the word voice) represents me every moment of every day.

Yet another wonder of the season. Yet another reason to rejoice.

shouting the victory

I don't think my parents put a lot of thought into my name; we really don't in our culture. But my name, Gregory, means Watchful One or Watchman. I sometimes think that one of my roles is to watch, and to report what I see. In small ways, like with this blog.

So there's a nice little bit of synergy today between that little conceit and what I wrote last time about God singing over us. Look at what it says in Isaiah 52:8-9:

"Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices;
together they shout for joy.
When the Lord returns to Zion,
they will see it with their own eyes.
Burst into songs of joy together,
you ruins of Jerusalem,
for the Lord has comforted his people,
he has redeemed Jerusalem."

As a watcher for Jesus, as an observer of what he's doing in the world, I'm in a great position to see that we're winning this fight - any thoughtful person who reads and prays can see it. It doesn't matter what candidates say or ISIS does or how the world looks at me.

A long time ago the decisive battle was won. Now we're just in the process of recovering our wounded.

So this is my joyous shout, my song of celebration, proclaiming from my place on the wall what I see: Hallelujah! The Baby King Jesus lives!

happy dance

I used to sing to my kids, a lot. I'd sing to them at bedtime, of course, trying to lull them to sleep. But we sang a lot at other times too, and the kids seemed to love it.

Now I'm a grandpa. There's this thing I used to do with the boys, until they outgrew it: I'd sing, "Jacen, Jacen, Jacen, let's do the little Jacen dance." And we'd both dance while I sang it. The boys loved this little celebration of themselves; Kaly never really got it.

I thought of the Jacen and Archer dances when I read the Advent promise in Zephaniah 3:15-17:

"The Lord has taken away your punishment,
he has turned back your enemy.
The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you;
never again will you fear any harm.
"On that day
they will say to Jerusalem,
"Do not fear, Zion;
do not let your hands hang limp.
The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing."

That's the thing I wait for during Advent: God does what has to be done to fix our relationship. And then he's so happy that he sings.

Awesome.

prosperity

As I work through my Advent reading plan I've thought more than once of a term that is used throughout our grandkids' story Bible: "God's Great Rescue Plan."

This morning, I was struck by the fact that God has more than just a rescue plan in mind. In Jeremiah 29:10-11 I read this: "This is what the Lord says: 'When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"

In addition to the great rescue that we focus on during Advent, God also has a Great Prosperity Plan. Even though just seeing me safe would be grace aplenty, God wants me to have an abundant life, not just a subsistence-level existence.

Every once in awhile we read of a convict being pardoned. He did the crime, but he won't have to do the time because the government forgave him. But what if, after that, the government also gave him a nice house, a new car, a high-paying job, and seeded his savings account with thousands of dollars? That would be amazing grace.

God's amazing grace is far greater. He adopts us, makes us his own, and never stops caring for us. God's plans, for rescue and prosperity, are to give us

chasing livestock

Not a farm kid, but I helped chase cows once, when snow drifted over the fence. There's not many things that will make you hate cows more than that.

I thought about that when I read Ezekiel 34:11-12 "'For this is what the Sovereign Lord says:I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness."

When God's wayward sheep, me among them, get out of the fences and away from the dogs and scatter to the four winds, God doesn't just let them go. He doesn't leave me to the face the death that chasing my sinful freedom will bring.

Instead, as aggravating as it is to herd scattered sheep, He goes looking, and doesn't rest until he finds them.

That's the image in this Advent reading, that even while we're lost in the wilderness, help is on the way. God is coming to save us. Sheep-stupid though I am, he won't leave me to my own stupidity. There's a safe place, with Him, and He intends to get me there.

That's hope for a hopeless sinner. That's grace where none is deserved. What a Savior!

imminent danger

A couple of times in my life I've been in what the army calls "imminent danger." It's not a great feeling. Most of my life, though, has been safe, at least physically.

This isn't good, but I don't think I've ever felt the fight-or-flight, heart-pounding, adrenaline flood of fear when I think of my own sin. When I think of approaching God, I view Him as a kindly father. I don't, as Isaiah did, see him as a God of justice, a God who hates sin. Hates my sin.

Isaiah had a vision where he came face-to-face with God. This is how he tells it (Isa 6:5-7) "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

Isaiah knew his own sin; he knew that in the presence of the God he had sinned against the only thing he should expect is to be struck dead. It's what sin deserves. But God, in his grace and mercy, cleansed Isaiah's unclean lips with a coal. Just as he cleanses my unclean life with Jesus' blood.

Before Christmas, all I can do is to cry out with Isaiah, "Woe to me! I am ruined by my own bad choices!" All I can do is look forward, as he did, to the redeeming work that will be (was) done for me.

life from a stump

“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” Isaiah 11:1.

It intrigues me to think that in the prophesies of the Messiah, the stump of Jesse refers to one of the best men who ever lived - David, the man after God’s own heart.

I think about the fact that David was the man God anointed to replace Saul, who failed as Israel’s first king. David himself, although one of the godliest men in all history, proved in the end to be an adulterous murderer and disastrous father. Only a couple of generations after David his earthly dynasty fell apart.

But from the stump of this once-promising but now dead tree will grow a legacy that comes not from David’s efforts but by God’s grace. All those failed kings, all the faithlessness of God’s people, still could not derail God’s great plan of redemption.

I realize two things, in the end. First, even the best of human effort can’t bring about what God desires. And second, God in his mercy will save us anyway.

It’s why we who believe look so longingly for Christmas, and why we don’t really care about the parties and presents. And why we say, looking to His second coming, “Quickly, Lord Jesus.”

waiting

"'The days are coming,' declares the Lord, 'when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.” Jer 33:14

It’s been a long wait. Hundreds of years since God told Adam he would send someone to crush the serpent’s head. Dozens of decades since He made covenant with Abraham. And yet, the people would wait another 500 years or so before Jesus would be born.

In this culture of instant gratification, where we would rather have debt than wait to own something, we’d rather have surgery than lose weight, we want to be managers right out of college instead of climbing the ladder, the idea of waiting half a millennium is appalling. 

But God’s timing is different than ours, and His timing is perfect. I need to remember that as life makes me wait. My house is taking way too long to build. We just got snow, and the months of winter loom like a tiresome chore. If I could, I’d fast forward through half of my life.

Jeremiah reminds me today that what I’m really called to is living faithfully in the not yet. Even my new home and the coming spring, once they get here, are part of not yet - not yet sanctified, not yet glorified. Not yet who and what I will be once I pass through the transition of death.

Like the Israelites of old, like my grandkids hefting the Christmas presents, I live in anticipation. My whole life will be lived in anticipation. There is a much better place than this, and I have a reservation. It seems a long way off.

But, God promises, the day is coming.

gloom and darkness

This advent season, it feels like even more than usual our world is full of anxiety. In Europe, Africa and Asia normal people fear the next terror attack. From Syria, thousands upon thousands move on foot, by train, boat, truck, whatever they can find, to escape the bombs. ISIS continues its madness.

Here in America, there have been well over 300 mass shootings this year. PTSD has ruined thousands of the most promising young lives. Some groups feel targeted by our police; others feel victimized by our government. We can't even find civil ways to discuss our differences anymore.

It's a time of gloom and darkness, a time of distress. A timely time to remember the promise God made to his people through the prophet many centuries ago (Isa 9:1-2) "Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress . . . . The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned."

What a promise for our times! "No more gloom for those who were in distress."

As I begin to anticipate Christmas, I think again as I so often do that this world desperately needs Jesus. I desperately need Jesus.

For the Syrian refugees, the young inner-city men dying by gunfire, the rancorous liberals and conservatives with their strident accusations and name-calling, and for my own poor soul, I pray, "Come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly."

"For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end." Isaiah 9:6

No More Darkness

Luke 2:6-7 "While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger. . . ."

Hallelujah! Jesus is born.

This is the season of parties and presents and special services and family get-togethers, and those are great ways to celebrate. But to me, the very best way to mark the season is with lights. I'm partial to white ones, or candle light, but light is what it's all about.

My favorite Christmas verse is Isaiah 9:2 "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned."

Only Jesus knows the darkness of my heart, and the dark places my wayward feet have taken me. Only He sees the dark smears all over my soul. And the amazing thing is that He not only cared so much that He endured that miserable manger, but He also cares less than anyone else. He loves me anyway.

So on Christmas morning, I'll be in church singing "Joy to the World," but I'll be looking at the Advent candles and thinking, as I do every year, that a Light has dawned.

And then I think about what the angel (hmmm . . . could it possibly have been Gabriel?) showed the apostle John about our ultimate destination: "I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there." (Revelation 21:22-25).

Come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly. I see the light dawning, and I can't wait for full noon.

No room

There was no room in the inn, Luke 2 tells us.

Too many people in Bethlehem, and maybe only one inn. So there they are, 100 miles later, Mary as pregnant as you can get, sitting in the straw in a stall. We remember the innkeeper as a decent man, who did the best he could, and the best he could do was the barn.

And of course, we draw the obvious conclusion every year and talk about making room for Jesus in our hearts. Good point, but I'm wondering about other things.

A friend of mine (never actually met him, but we've spoken on the phone and talk online almost daily) had a serious car crash a few weeks ago. He'll recover, but he has big bills. He evidently has spoken of me enough that his friends and family decided to contact me. He's a great guy, leads a church, helps a lot of people. I want to help him. But I want to help my brother too, and we support a guy at a camp in Colorado and a Compassion child and the missionaries of our church.

All good things, all part of God's work. So how much room does Jesus get in my wallet?

And I have all kinds of electronic ways to manage my time. I use Google Calendar to keep family informed of my schedule, and my Outlook calendar syncs with my new Android phone. At regular intervals through the day my phone vibrates or my computer dings to let me know the next thing I have to be at. Yet some things are conspicously absent. No colored spaceholder for devotions. No reminders to pray. No prompting to praise or ponder or plead.

So how much room does Jesus get in my day planner?

Metaphorically speaking, right now when it comes to time and money, do I give Jesus the barn, or a hotel room? Or do I take Him home, give Him the master bedroom, let him use the kitchen, pick the TV channel, actually live with me like family?

The heart's the easy part. Giving Him due space in my life gets a lot harder. But it's an axiom of detective work that if you want to know what someone's into, get a look at their checkbook and their calender and you'll soon know their loyalties. Without me there to explain a lot of things, I don't think either of mine screams "JESUS IS LORD."

Pledged

I'm still thinking about that trek Joseph took with Mary, from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Yesterday, I wondered at how difficult it must have been. Today I'm again impressed that Joseph did it at all. Because I'm thinking about the word "pledged."

Luke 2:5 "He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child."

Does that mean they weren't yet married? I suppose a wedding vow is also a pledge, but our understanding of the term would be more like engaged. I don't know which is more accurate, and I'm told that Jewish weddings of the time were a lot more drawn out, with nuanced stages, so that we don't really have the right words for all of it. But in this passage, it makes me think maybe Joseph had an option: if he wasn't married yet, couldn't Mary be enrolled back at home? 

Those are idle wonderings until I get to the other thought that this word prompts: Joseph made a promise, and he carried it out. No matter the pregnancy that he had no part of, no matter the difficulty of dragging an incapacitated woman halfway across the country. Joseph promised Mary he'd be her husband, and circumstances won't change that. Maybe he needed a little help from the angel to see his course, but once he saw it, he didn't waver.

As I wait for Jesus, I'm struck by all the commitments I've made - to wife, to church, to God - that I have yet to carry out. There are a lot of reasons, some good and some bad, but the fact remains that there are some things I still need to follow through on. 

Wo knew that part of Advent would be to reflect and re-commit to things I said more than three decades ago at my profession of faith? Yet somehow, as I consider Joseph's active faithfulness to his pledge, I'm drawn to think of my pledge to the baby Joseph so carefully nurtured.

David

Luke 2:4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.

Caesar Augustus did his task - out of vanity or a desire to control or just simple curiosity, he ordered the census. The un-named angel did his job - he convinced Joseph to remain committed to Mary. The outcome of all of this is that Joseph puts Mary on a donkey and trudges from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

Ever wonder why God did it that way? We're not sure exactly where the roads ran, but the distance was likely close to 100 miles. With a pregnant woman, it probably took a week or so. A week on a donkey, within days of delivering? That must have been really hard for Mary, and it can't have been easy for Joseph either. Surely there was a manger and some shepherds in Nazareth, and as far as the magi had to come, another 100 miles wouldn't have been that big a deal. Why did God plan it this way?

I don't know. Maybe it was to spare Nazareth from Herod for some reason. Maybe it was God's graciousness to one particular shepherd or innkeeper whose life was changed. We know it was to fulfill prophecy, but God could have prophesied anything. 

It just reminds me that, although God doesn't make our lives harder for no reason at all, He won't hesitate to make us do something hard. If a tough assignment serves Him best, or serves someone else who needs it, or helps us grow, then that's what we'll get. 

Following Jesus will be rewarding, and we'll be blessed and will prosper as God defines the term, but we should never expect it to be easy.