Life Through the Lens: The road trip

This post – part two of a four-part Christmas series – was contributed by Kevin Schrapel, and is the author’s personal opinion. Read part one here.

Joseph heard about Mary being pregnant.

He thought, “Uh oh – Mary hasn’t slept with me.”

“Maybe she’s got a new bloke.

“I still love her and don’t want to embarrass her.

“I’ll quietly break off the engagement.”

But again, God stepped in.

He sent an angel to mess with Joseph’s dreams, with a message that Mary’s pregnancy was part of his plans, and not to break off the engagement.

The next morning a bleary-eyed Joseph said to himself – and to God – “Okay, if that is what God wants, I’ll marry Mary and look after the little bloke like he was my own”.

Now we go on a road trip of 111km with Joseph, a pregnant Mary and a non-pregnant donkey.

To understand this, we need to back up a bit.

About six hundred years before, God had let it be known that this specially planned birth would happen in Bethlehem.

But how to get Joseph and a pregnant Mary to go to Bethlehem?

Governments may not know it or believe it, but God can use them, too, to make his plans happen.

Well, the government decided that everyone in the country had to be counted, and to make it easier for the counters, everyone had to go to the town from which their great grandfathers, grandfathers, et cetera came.

Guess where Joseph’s relations had lived?

Right – Bethlehem!

So, at the end of the road trip, worn out, cold – not hot and dusty, remembering this was winter time in their country – footsore, tired, Joseph, pregnant Mary and a non-pregnant donkey arrived in Bethlehem, along with a mob of other travellers all coming to be counted.

Imagine an exhausted Joseph and pregnant Mary knocking on inn doors – inns are like old-time motels – and the innkeepers all saying, “Bad luck mate, no rooms left”.

But again God swung his plan into action.

Finally, after saying, “sorry mate, full up”, one bloke took a closer look, saw the tired and pregnant Mary, sighed and said, “Well mate, I guess you and the missus could stay in the stable out the back”.

And so that is where this special baby, the son of God, was born.

His mother wrapped him in some cloths and gently laid him on some straw in a feeding manger.

People think stables are smelly, dirty and cold places.

Believe me, that is not true.

I grew up on a farm with a stable where my dad kept his horses for pulling ploughs.

On cold, windy nights it was so warm from those big animals and cuddly in the straw, quiet and peaceful.

It would have been the best place ever to be born.

Especially when, you know, it was God’s idea.

To be continued…

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