When they arrived at the city of Bethlehem, it was time for the baby to be born. Anyone who has given birth knows that a baby usually arrives when it’s ready, not when we are. There wasn’t any place to go. No rooms were left anywhere.

I can picture the innkeeper, up to his ears in patrons and not enough food to serve them. He didn’t have room for a woman who was about to give birth. He most certainly didn’t know that he was turning away the King of Creation. I can see the wife of the innkeeper looking at the pregnant woman with sympathy and prodding her husband to find a place. Jewish women can get right to the core of things. She most likely thought of the little room in the barn which was reserved for the newborn lambs.

So there they went. Both Mary and Joseph were exhausted from the hundred mile trek to Bethlehem. Now confined to the shelter of a barn, she undoubtedly looked down at her swollen belly and feet, wondering how this would all turn out. She had made the journey on the back of a donkey, but the extra weight she carried and coming to the end of her pregnancy, she had to be more than a little discouraged by the accommodations. Yet she knew that the life within her was ready to be born. The contractions were coming closer together.

It’s hard to comprehend that God had such a humble birth in mind for the Prince of Peace. He humbled Himself and became a human being, a servant, a carpenter, a man of kindness and truth so that I could have all the benefits of His royal kingdom. Then He sacrificed that life to take away my sins and rose again to life, as I will too someday. He came for all of mankind – not just me. He came to heal, to forgive, to give us a second chance.

His birth place wasn’t the setting for a king’s birth, but it was the perfect time for a Messiah. He couldn’t wait to be born and we can’t wait for Him to return.

I love you, Lord Jesus, as softly you lay in a crude little manger asleep on the hay. Be ever my Savior, my Lord and my King. Please stay at my side, Lord. Your praises I sing.