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, because there was no room for them in the inn.

   

Young parents today so often take much time thinking and planning their coming baby's nursery. We paint walls and stick on pretty transfers. We buy a new cradle or cot and we start to get together the clothes for a tiny baby. It's a time of real anticipation, mostly happy, but for the first one, a time of wondering how we will cope.

 

If that's how we think, how much more must Mary and Joseph have been thinking that? No nicely prepared nursery for them! In fact there was the risk that Mary might even have the child while they were travelling. Probably it was with a sigh of relief that they arrived at Bethlehem – we've made it! But quick, the first contractions have started! Where can we go to have this baby? Here's an Inn. It's full up with everyone else coming here to be counted.

The innkeeper, or possibly his wife, sees the urgency of the situation. Round the back is a stable. Here, quick, round the back. Here it was that the little baby, in thirty years to become the Saviour of the world, was born. No Christmas presents, no turkey dinner, no nice nursery, just a stable at the end of a line of actions caused by a proud Roman emperor. The most significant event in the history of the earth has just taken place in the most lowly of circumstances – the Son of God has just arrived on earth! Talk about an anonymous entry! But he's arrived. Now it begins!