"And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son."

“And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.”

“And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:7) NIV

Newsweek magazine had an article entitled, “The Miracle of Christmas.” So what’s miraculous about Christmas? The article focused on the birth of Jesus. But was Jesus’ birth miraculous? Jesus was born just like the rest of us. There was pain and blood and perhaps a queasy Joseph. The miracle happened nine months earlier. The miracle happened when “the power of the Most High” overshadowed Mary and she conceived the Son of God. After this incredible miracle, Jesus implanted in Mary’s uterine wall and developed and grew there as we all did in our own mother’s womb. His birth occurred as did all births before and after—nothing miraculous about it. Or was there?

The miracle of Jesus’ birth is seen in the completely un-miraculous nature of it all. The miracle of Christmas is the meagerness of Christmas. It is not a mansion, but a manger, where God’s Son lays His head. It is not in the holy city of Jerusalem, but in the rather unholy village of Bethlehem, where God makes His earthly debut. “It was not by accident that the Savior’s birthplace was in the small province of despised Judea, a vanquished, plundered country. The village of Bethlehem was small even according to that day’s impoverished standards, and the manger was the humblest spot of that village.” (Dr. Walter A. Maier as quoted in this year’s Lutheran Hour Ministries Advent devotions.)

The miracle of Christmas is that God would come at all into a world that had rejected Him. But He did. And He did so in a way that excludes neither lowly shepherds nor stately kings from His presence. A Savior lying in a manger is a Savior for all. What a miracle!

(Posted December 2005.)

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