Loading...For the month of December, throughout the season of Advent, there was an Episcopal Church challenge to meditate on a particular word each day. Needing a way to settle each night, to focus on the preparation we are called to do in Advent, I wrote something about each word, every night. Last Thursday the word was HOME.
Not only did that word conjure up memories of places and people we have called HOME throughout our lives, but it also made me think about how HOME plays a role in our story tonight.
We hear of Joseph and Mary, who are required to return to his homeland. The place where Joseph’s family comes from, but probably not a place where Joseph has too many connections anymore. He may or may not have been born there, but it’s likely a place where he can find people who are related to him, like aunties and uncles, and cousins once, twice, or three times removed.
This is not a welcomed journey for Mary and Joseph, but a required one. Required by an edict from the Roman government to get a head count, a census. Not of people who currently live there, but of anyone whose blood line comes from there. More of a way to identify people by tribe than by location.
I wonder if, on their journey, there were conversations about how ridiculous it was to be required to make this trip, mixed with Joseph’s anticipation of seeing his extended family again, constantly reminded by Mary’s growing belly of the near due date, worrying about the safety and care for Mary and the baby. Because if it were me, those all might be top of mind!
I wonder if Joseph was telling Mary about all those family members they were going to see, wondering if the HOME they were heading toward would be filled to overflowing with all those who were making this required trip to be counted.
You see, while we have imagined for all these years that Mary and Joseph were looking for a place to stay, as if there were hostels and motels, they were heading for HOME. The place where family started.
It was probably a compound, kind of like how ranching and farming families build homes for children to live in, children who help care for and will likely inherit the family property. In Bethlehem, there may have been a courtyard connecting each home, where women and children would gather to cook, sew, teach, and live in a family community.
When I was in Jerusalem our guide told us that as modern families grow, they add floors to their single level homes as sons marry, move in with their wife, and have their families. The taller the house, the more sons, the bigger the family. They live in a multi-generational family community.
Where they now have garages under their houses, back in the day Jesus came into this world, they had stables for the animals, to keep them safe and warm.
Mary and Joseph were making a trip HOME, even if it wasn’t a familiar place, and the timing was extremely complicated. Joseph was taking Mary to meet his people. While their arrival would be welcome and expected, for them, it was definitely inconvenient. They HAD to be there, there was no other choice.
The circumstances may be a little different, but the expectation may seem familiar for any of us who go home or invite family to our homes this time of the year. A true mix of joy and anxiety.
In this crowded, noisy place, Mary would need a quiet place to give birth, but because the house was full, she and Joseph ended up in a private, but unexpected place for the birthing of Jesus. They ended up in the garage…I mean stable… under the living quarters.
But because they were HOME with all those people, Mary would not have to give birth without the help of women who knew what to do.
I know, I know, I’ve just shattered your image of a barn, set apart from the house, down a hill, dark and cold, where Joseph and Mary would experience this birth without help, surrounded by animals. But haven’t you wondered?
The picture-perfect depiction of a baby being laid in a manger, one of those containers used to feed the animals, surrounded by the warmth of a bed of hay. That image you have can still be real. It may have been the only place left in this very full, busy, and noisy house where a newborn could have some peace, warmth, and privacy.
Changing the perspective on what Mary and Joseph were heading toward, that they were heading HOME, like so many of us do, to a full, noisy place of people who know and love you, gives me a sense of comfort in this tale. I would much prefer to know that even if there wasn’t much space left in this HOME, the family there found room to welcome not only Joseph, but Mary, who was ready to give birth.
Can you imagine the activity around their arrival? It didn’t matter that the baby was the son of God. It mattered that the baby would be safely delivered from a young, likely scared, mother-to-be. It mattered that there were women, always prepared, even though they may have been surprised this time, for the miracle of new birth. It mattered that they were family, even when Mary was a stranger to them, and they were strangers to Mary.
As you go to the places you call HOME in this holy time, places quiet or noisy, with a few people or an overflowing houseful, remember that like in that stable in Bethlehem, God is as present with you as God was present for the Holy Family.
HOME is where it can be both messy and neat, and I don’t just mean what it looks like. We bring our “selves” into a place, gathering with people who are bringing their “selves,” too. All dealing with something we may not know about, perhaps carrying a heavy load, like Mary and Joseph were, in need of a safe space to be welcomed as they are. I pray that you will find or provide a place of safety and refuge to all who you meet, because God desires that for you.
HOME can be near or far, and if you are not able to be where you find yours, know that you are not alone. Even Mary, a stranger in this place that would become her home for a few years, found that she was surrounded by people who would come to her aid, who would become her chosen family, when she needed them most. Because God provides who we need, when we need them.
I give thanks that you are here on this holy night, finding this place your HOME, if only for this night, to hear the story of the birth of Jesus, the one who teaches us what it means to love one another. For our HOME is in the arms of the One who loves us most of all. Amen.
