It can be a challenge finding new talks from the same Christmas Bible passages every year. It shouldn't be, but it can be. This year I've been struck by Mary & Joseph's ability to trust God.

When God comes to Mary and says 'this is what I want to do' he doesn't say, go ask your dad's permission. That's unexpected. God's not going through the proper channels. He doesn't say, go to Joseph your fiancée and work this out. He doesn’t invite Mary and Joseph to a meeting together. He says I am about to change the world. Can I use you?

Mary responds with "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said." It's so easy to imagine this with the folded hands that we see in the famous paintings, with the perfect halo. But this is real. God's asking Mary a big, big thing. She's going to be pregnant.

What is her family going to say? What is Joseph going to say? What does this do to her marriage? Will she still get married after this happens? What will the neighbours say? She lived in a village of about 250 people. High visibility. How would she live? How could this all work out?

And yet at the end of it all, she says yes. Now it's easy to say yes on the outside when faced with a whopping great angel.... but God, and Angels I'm sure, looks at the heart. Mary is willing to put aside her fears and say yes to this incredible message from God.

But the Angel didn’t go to Mary’s family or to Joseph’s. He didn’t go to the others in the village. And it’s a while before they marry. We don’t know how she tells him, and what his reaction is. 

And what about Joseph? He expected to lead an ordinary life, like the people around them in Nazareth. But an angel appeared to him in a dream and said “"Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit." Joseph is faithful to God and to Mary. Men, how would you have responded if this was your wife?

In Luke, from the time this message comes till the time that Jesus is born is one chapter long. But for Mary it was nine months. Nine months. Nine months to think about Jesus being born. And then on top of all the normal expectations, this is going to be this Messiah. So she starts to build a picture in her mind of what it is all going to be like, but what actually happened?

Mary is sitting on the donkey. Due any moment. Then there’s nowhere to stay. Then she’s in the stable. She's looking around saying, okay when is the innkeeper going to come in and say someone cancelled, But that's not what happens. So Mary is there in a stable, in a real stable, the smelly kind. And Jesus is never late, is he! But at least she’s in a stable relationship….

In Isaiah, the Bible tells us that his ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts. God does not always do it our way. We have expectations. We think we know what God should be doing. And then unexpected things happen and sorrows come and we wonder if God's in it and what happened? We doubt...

But Mary treasured up all of these things and pondered them in her heart. She kept her ear tuned to what God was saying, and kept her heart open for the next step of obedience.

It would be wonderful if God answered our prayers by bringing us greater ease and comfort. But life is not like that. And praise him that Mary and Joseph continued to trust God and did all it took to bring Jesus into the world. This was for our salvation, that we might know the Father, that his Spirit might live in us, that we might be forgiven, that WE MIGHT KNOW HIM AND KNOW HIM IN US…

Joseph Bayly wrote this poem

'Praise God for Christmas.'

Praise Him for the incarnation,
for the word made flesh.
I will not sing of shepherds
watching flocks on frosty nights,
or angel choristers.
I will not sing of a stable bare in Bethlehem,
or lowing oxen,
wise men trailing star with gold,
frankincense, and myrrh.
Tonight I will sing praise to the Father
who stood on heaven's threshold
and said farewell to his Son
as he stepped across the stars
to Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
And I will sing praise to the infinite, eternal Son,
who became most finite, a baby
who would one day be executed for my crime.
Praise him in the heavens,
Praise him in the stable,
Praise him in my heart.

Joseph Bayly.

Thanks to Joseph and Mary….