Silver Bells.  Santa suits. Lit up trees and eaves.  Christmas is most definitely in the air.  And as we get ready for the 25th, I find myself thinking about how Mary and Joseph must've felt as they got ready for the first Christmas.  I remember how worried/scared/stressed/excited I was my daughter's day of birth approached.  And Mary and Joseph had more than enough reason to feel those emotions.

Much has been made over the years about Mary's position in her society as a pregnant, unwed young woman.  Suffice to stay she would've been ostracized.  Joseph had the opportunity to have her killed or black listed, but the Bible tells us an angel convinced him to stay with her.  I would imagine he was probably also ostracized.  On the other end of their journey to Bethlehem, their is the infamous small town with no rooms available for the son of God, only a stable with a humble manger.  But its that journey, the approaching Christmas that interests me this year.

As worried as my wife and I may have been about the logistics of having a baby, at least we knew we had our family around to support us.  We knew we probably had a hospital room.  We even knew what the hospital room was going to look like.  We had clothes, and a crib, and a car seat, and all of those things that the affluency of america requires us and allows us to have.

As Joseph hoisted Mary on that donkey to begin their journey, what was going through their heads?  They were leaving everyone they knew behind.  Mary was losing all of the women who normally help with the birth of child.  She was leaving family support and, in the process, the "nurses."  She had no idea where the birth would take place, who would help, or how the baby would survive.  Shoot, if 1 in 3 pregnancies in 2010 end in miscarriages (or so I've heard), how huge was the chance that Mary was going to lose hers?  But that couldn't happen, right?  God promised this child!  On the other hand, maybe it could...

Did Joseph wonder how he was going to deliver this child?  Men don't do that.  How was he going to take care of a baby that isn't even his?  What does a father teach a son when that son already knows everything?  Was this child really the son of God?  Of course it was - the angel told him so!  On the other hand, maybe he was dreaming...

As they laid their heads on rocks in the desert, together but incredibly alone, how did they convince themselves that they could bring this child into this world and actually take care of it?  Did they talk about their fears, or simply swallow their tears and trust God would take care of them?  Did they trust God?  Did they trust each other?  Was Mary gentile or pained and cranky?  Was Joseph gracious or easily angered?

Whether your life feels like the peace of a new snow, the ferocity of a shopping mall, the optimism of lighted houses, or the darkness of lonely desert night, I hope that you are anticipating Christmas.  As we do, I hope that we remember the gift that having family around is (even when it doesn't feel like it).  I hope we remember that Mary and Joseph were faithful despite doubts, not faithful without doubts, and we strive to follow their example.  Mostly, I hope we discover what Mary and Joseph discovered that Christmas morning:  God ALWAYS fulfills His promises.