And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 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 (Luke 2:6-7).
Jesus was born when “the time came.” The time came, not just for the fulfillment of Mary’s pregnancy, but for the fulfillment of God’s pre-world plan to become a divine human being.
Think of it! The Bethlehem prophecy alone (Micah 5:2) reminds us that God had hundreds of years to plan this event! How will it happen?
Did God have a nesting desire toward his Son?
Remember how much time and planning and energy went into your wedding, even though you may only have had a year to organize it? Or, parents, think of how you prepare for a new baby with only nine months to plan: you paint their room, arrange their bed, and child-proof the whole house in order to protect them.
Did God have a nesting desire toward his Son?
Would he have liked to protect him from pain, please him with comforting sounds and colors and soft things? Surely so. But for Jesus, the road to Calvary began on day one.
The God who created the universe took on human form and entered time and space! That alone is unspeakable condescension. But he could have been born as an imperial heir in a great Chinese dynasty, wrapped in woven silk, and coddled throughout his childhood. He could have been born in the twenty-first century, with all our modern medicine, amenities, and sterilization (do you think God doesn’t know about germs and dirt?).
In fact, God could have taken on flesh as a fully-grown adult rather than as a humble and helpless infant — appearing, as he did to Joshua — as the Captain of the Lord’s host, before whom warriors and world-leaders must bow. But instead the Son of God was born to a carpenter in a tiny town called Bethlehem. He was wrapped in rags, and laid in a trough because that was the common crib of the day. All this, because there was no room for them in the inn.
What?! Did God plan this birth from before the world began, but forget to make reservations for Joseph and Mary at the hotel in Bethlehem? No, it was the purpose of God that from day one of Jesus’ life on earth he would be a suffering servant, a humble and helpless infant without a home. “For your sake he became poor” (2 Corinthians 8:9). And this is how this humble scene points us to the Christian gospel.
God planned for his Son to be born into poverty and pain, because that is where we were.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is about more than just cute manger scenes or sentimental songs. It is about a God who has himself suffered for your sake, so that no matter what you face for his sake or in his service, you can know it is not outside his experience. It is not beyond his purposes. It is not bigger than his plan of redemption.
God planned for his Son to be born into poverty and pain, because that is where we were.
God planned for his Son to be born without a home, so that you and I could have a home with him in heaven.
The gospel is the majestic story of the condescension of God, in Jesus Christ, in order to accomplish our salvation. May you rejoice in this good news today.