The Music of Christmas, Day 11

 Mary’s Lullaby

Read Luke 2:1-7

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths 

and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

 

It was after two o’clock in the morning. The street was deserted, and I was driving well above the posted speed limit. My heart was already racing when I saw the very thing I hoped to avoid -- police lights in the rearview mirror. Briefly, I considered ignoring the glare and driving faster, but good reason finally won out. I pulled over to the side of the road.

 

Rolling down my window, the light from a flashlight blinded me. I was fully prepared to plead my case. If I’d been given the opportunity, that is. “License and registration, please,” he said. I had it ready and handed it over. Before I could utter a full word, he was walking back to the patrol car. When he returned, he asked in a firm and impatient voice, “Sir, do you know how fast you were driving?” 

 

“Probably around ninety?” 

 

“And can I ask why you were driving so fast?” 

 

At last, a chance to defend myself. “Um, my wife is about to have a baby and we’re trying to get to the hospital.” For the first time, the officer moved his light from me to the passenger seat where my lovely but very angry wife sat glaring back at him. Clearly pregnant and uncomfortable, who could blame her? This was our fourth child and the sweet little girl had been anxiously trying to join her siblings for the past two months. Because of her rush to enter this world, Sheri had been on bedrest. “Don’t waste any time getting to the hospital or you deliver on the side of the road,” her doctor had warned. Now it looked as if that scenario might happen.

 

Life seldom works out the way we plan it. It was true that night and still is today. Babies come early, or late, and sometimes not at all. Spouses die or leave, the company fails, and that job you loved or needed is suddenly eliminated. We are constantly confronted with unmet expectations and mid-course corrections. Mary and Joseph had already adjusted their hopes and dreams several times. After Gabriel’s first appearance their worlds were turned upside down. The news of a baby prior to the wedding, the timing of the unexpected trip to Bethlehem so close to the baby’s anticipated arrival, and now, as if this couple had not endured enough, there was no room in the inn. The best the innkeeper could offer was a stall in a barn. It would suffice until something more suitable could be found. In the meantime, Joseph and Mary must have prayed that the baby would wait.

 

He did not. 

 

Jesus came right when He was supposed to come (Galatians 4:4), but not at all when Mary and Joseph would have liked. So far from home and the comforting help of her mother or her cousin Elizabeth, Mary was left to deliver the Son of God with no one other than Joseph to help. This young couple, who had no experience delivering a baby, in a place not fit for such activities, delivered the Son of God. And, according to Dr. Luke, Mary wrapped her baby in swaddling clothes and made sure He had a place to rest. And although Luke doesn’t say this, we can be assured that she also did what any new mother would have done -- she nestled her baby to her breast and nursed Him, gently singing a mother’s lullaby into the tiny ear of God. Because that’s what mothers do, even when circumstances do not turn out the way they’d hoped or expected. 

 

We spend much of our lives under the illusion that we can control our circumstances. We have been told that we are the masters of our fate and the captains of our destinies, but that is simply not the case. While we cannot control our circumstances, we can choose to respond to them with the faith and confidence of people who serve the One who is the Master of all destinies. Mary and Joseph modeled this throughout the Christmas story. When others doubted God’s involvement, Mary and Joseph believed and simply did the next right thing. Even when that meant singing lullabies in a barn.

 

Oh, and for the record, our youngest daughter wasn’t born on the side of the road. That young officer gave us a police escort to the hospital, and I got out of an awfully expensive speeding ticket.

 

 

God of the Unexpected, 

Nothing surprises You. You who hung the stars in place and orchestrate the rotation of the planets are firmly in control of the details of Your creation. And even when the schemes of man seem to conspire against Your plans, You are working all things together for our good. Give me the faith to believe that Your plans for me are for my good and not for evil. And to trust You by faithfully obeying Your Word, 

even when things aren’t working the way I expect.
Amen.

The Music of Christmas is available in print or digital formats.