Where Is Your Bethlehem?

A friend sent me this; it was so good I just had to share “Where IS Your Bethlehem?God’s Word shares with you, “Joseph went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem….He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.” As the crow flies, it was a journey of approximately 62 miles but traveling over hills, through villages and around rivers would likely have made the trip even longer. Christmas pictures seem to show Mary riding a donkey but we have no idea of their mode of travel. In any case, whether on foot or on the back of a swaying brown animal, it wasn’t an easy journey, especially for a woman nearing the end of her pregnancy.

Why did she go? True, government officials decreed a census and that everyone must go to their “own city”, the place their families called home, for this official registration and counting. Perhaps Mary was also quite ready to leave the village of Nazareth where tongues were wagging about her pregnancy and unmarried status.But Mary and Joseph knew they were going far from family and into a city whose streets would be clogged with traveling strangers. They were assured of no warm welcome, no cozy place to birth the expected child. Perhaps they hoped for a small house or a distant relative or a way for Joseph to earn money for their keep, but in almost every way, they were traveling into the unknown. The journey was long and hard, the destination uncertain.

Nearly nine months before their arrival in Bethlehem, Mary spoke life-changing words to God, words that were to comfort her in the many uncertain years ahead, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.” With those simple words of faith, she could endure the long journey on the back of an animal, the cold streets of Bethlehem, the staring faces of strangers, and even the crude stable with its straw-lined manger.

Where is your Bethlehem? Has the path been long, the people uncaring, the circumstances burdensome? When you submit yourself as servant to a Loving Father, you can – in quietness and confidence – add “May it be to me as You have said” no matter the place or position in which you find yourself. In Jesus’ Name. Thy Will be done. Amen. Peace.