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And she [Mary] 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 2:7)
Now that I’ve gone through labor and childbirth, I can’t imagine doing that in the kind of discomfort Mary probably bore. “There was no room for them in the kataluma,” says Luke—and whether the word “kataluma” should be translated “inn” or “guest room,” it really doesn’t matter. There was no room in that comfortable place for a woman in labor, or her frantic husband, or her tiny newborn baby—no room for God Himself.
Why put Jesus to sleep in a manger? Well, labor and delivery make you sleepy afterward. And my first urge when I got sleepy was to put my baby somewhere safe and warm—where no one could drop him, step on him, or harm him in any other way. If the place Mary gave birth was a stable, no doubt there were rats. Mary must have been worried. And so she and Joseph put Him in the safest place they could find—a feeding trough.
Jesus is no longer a baby, of course. But He feels the same protective urge toward you and me, because through His suffering, death, and resurrection, He has given life to us. And now that we are God’s own beloved children, He wants us in the safest place possible. So He has taken us into Himself—as He prays to the Father, “that they also may be in Us … I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You loved Me” (John 17:21b, 23).
WE PRAY: Thank You, dear Lord, for loving and protecting me. Amen.
Reflection Questions:
- Have you ever cared for a baby?
- If so, how did you keep the baby safe?
- What does Jesus protect you from? How does He do it?
Advent Devotions were written by Dr. Kari Vo.
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