Advent week 4: The Love of God
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This week we are celebrating Love–God’s love for us, and our love for Him. We only have two days and then Christmas!
Day 1 (Sunday)
John 3:16 For God so love the world that he gave his only Begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
Mary new the time would be soon. It has been almost 9 months since she had seen the angel Gabriel. Through these months, the angel’s words remained constantly in her mind.
“Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” (Matthew 1: 30-33)
Just as the angel had said, Mary was pregnant although she was still a virgin.
The past nine months had been difficult. When Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant, he almost backed out of their engagement. Mary wouldn’t have blamed him, since he was not the father of the child she was carrying. She cried with relief when he came back to her. He had also been visited by an angel. The angel had explained the situation, and Joseph married Mary.
The time had come for Jesus to be born. The young couple, Mary and Joseph, had to travel to Bethlehem to pay taxes. The journey was exhausting for the very pregnant Mary. She was eager to find an inn and rest for the night.
When Joseph knocked at the door of the inn, the innkeeper had been polite, but all the rooms had been filled hours before. Mary’s eyes welled up with tears, and she sobbed quietly.
The apologetic innkeeper led Mary and Joseph to the stable. “I’m sorry, this is all I can offer you,” he said.
As Mary sat on the hard floor of the stable, she felt the first contractions. The baby would be born that night among the animals in the stable.
Day 2 (Monday)
The young mother wrapped her newborn baby in cloths and lay him in a manger. Softly she hummed to the baby Jesus. This wasn’t the entry she had expected for her firstborn child, but Jesus seemed healthy, content, and completely unaware of the animals staring at him.
There was no crib, that had been left back in their house in Galilee. Mary laid her newborn son in the manger, resting with the smell of sweet hay. Then she laid back and rested herself. Joseph sat nearby watching over his wife Mary and the baby Jesus.
The three of them were sitting just like that when four very excited shepherds came running into the stable followed by a small herd of sheep.
“Angels told us…the Savior…there he is, in the manger, just as the angels said!” the shepherds cried out.
Everything was in a bit of a confusion. The shepherds seemed rather embarrassed when they realized that Mary and the baby had been resting.
They shooed the sheep outside and one by one, the four shepherds sat down on the ground near the manger. For a few minutes, they each bowed their heads as in prayer. Then they left.
As the shepherds left the stable, Joseph could hear them shouting in the streets, “We have seen the Son of God! The Savior has come!”
As the sun rose over the little town of Bethlehem, Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.