On the Outside Looking Inn Luke 2:6-11

“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. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” (Luke 2:6-11) NIV

Random Thoughts:

This is a Kodak moment of Biblical proportions. You know the one--where robed people wear serene smiles, candles cast halos of light, Gernsey cows look adoringly on as beautiful winged angels strum harps in a twilight heaven because all is right with the world. But I suspect the original readers of Luke’s letter would have seen it very differently.

And, truth to tell, anyone who has ever experienced the hardship of delivering a child or the realities of working with livestock (both very good things in their own right) would also know one really should not go with the other. Ever. And so I have to wonder if Mary and Joseph struggled to understand how this could be happening to them? How the God of the Universe who so recently performed miracles was now seemingly incapable of getting a hotel reservation? Or of bringing forth his son at a time and place where at least they would have the help and support of family? I wonder if they wondered?

This story just seems all wrong. The Messiah who will bring great joy to all the people begins his earthly life shut out by the very people he came to save, birthed instead, by an inexperienced first-time mother and her inexperienced fiance in a pen with animals. Why did they have to be so alone? And the God of the Universe sends his angels to announce the great news to shepherds, a cast of people considered so unclean and unacceptable that they too, living with animals, are shut off from their community. Why send the world’s greatest announcement to these outcasts? 

Perhaps it goes back to the very beginning to the foolish couple who managed to get themselves locked out of the Garden. God has always had a heart for those on the outside looking in. In choosing to bring us home where we can truly belong, he also chooses, as part of the process to be like us, one who understands what it is to be locked out and rejected from the connection we long for, from those we love. To be on the outside looking in. Because when Creator God chooses to experience the pain of this broken world we are enabled to believe He truly cares and understands. 

Because he really does.

Question:

Are you hoping for a “hotel reservation” rescue that doesn’t seem to be coming? A problem you need to surrender in trust to God to use His way? Or has there been a time you didn’t see how God could work in a situation you felt was beyond repair? How has He grown you through it? How has your relationship with Him deepened because of it?

Journal Response:

Three days ago I got two emails from high school teachers. They were another reminder that our journey to understand how to help our oldest son is far from over. After hours of straining in my own strength to contact “experts”, to put out fires, to problems solve the issues in the hopes that we could fix the latest leak in a long line of metaphorical plumbing, I finally sat myself down on my dining room steps, just trying to breathe. 

And then I remembered. It never even occurred to me to pray first. I had done all this work, poured out all this mental energy and contacted everyone I could think of in my effort to help but hadn’t even thought to contact the only one who even knew what was going on in the first place. Duh. 

But then as I began to pray, I began to cry. I was angry. Suddenly just angry. Yes, God knows what is going on with my son and what to do that would be best. So why wasn’t He providing a cosmic “hotel reservation”? Where were my answers? Why did I feel let down, facing our challenges from what felt like the hopelessness of an animal pen instead of the 5-star hotel I knew He could provide? (I know, it’s a stretch of a metaphor but work with me here.)

So I threw a middle-aged woman’s tantrum complete with tears, accusations and my favorite question, “Why?!”. (Suspiciously, this is something I seem to do almost once a month but I digress.)

Two days and a chagrined apology later I am, for lack of a better word, “stable-ized”. I know God has not caused our difficulties and neither does he exist to ensure we never have them. He could have done that for himself all those years ago but he didn’t. And I’m glad. My Father doesn’t lecture me from the unrealistic Ivory Tower that has never tasted life’s disappointments; he comforts me from an experience that says, “I’ve been there, so trust me.” When God is in the stable with us as He was in the beginning, it’s a very good place to be. I bet Mary and Joseph figured that out a lot sooner than I did.