Same Christmas, Different Room

This year, Christmas may look a little different. Christmas always looks different throughout the years: I grew up going to my Mamaw and Papaw’s house on Christmas morning, but when people die and homes are sold, Christmas looks a little different. This year, however, there might have to be more changes than usual. Due to restrictions and mandates, you may not get to have Christmas in the same house you are used to. The location may be different: maybe you’ll visit someone in the hospital this year, or through a window outside of a nursing home. Or maybe you’ll visit a high-risk relative and you’ll have to spend some of your Christmas outside by a fire to help them feel safe. For whatever reason, Christmas may look a little different for you and your family this year. Two thousand years ago, a virgin named Mary had a different pregnancy and birth. 

“In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!’ Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. ‘Don’t be afraid, Mary,’ the angel told her, ‘for you have found favor with God! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!’ Mary asked the angel, ‘But how can this happen? I am a virgin.’ 
The angel replied, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.’” (Luke 1:26-35)

This pregnancy was going to be different, the only one of its kind, fulfilling the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14: “All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).” But it’s not just the circumstances of the pregnancy that would make this one different—this would be a different birth as well.

“At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child. And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born.” (Luke 2:1-6)

Mary would have to give birth to her first child away from home. Of course, it wasn’t just the location of Bethlehem that would be different, but the specific place in the foreign land where Mary would have to give birth would be different.

“She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.” (Luke 2:7)

There was no room available for them, so Mary gave birth to the Savior of the world in a foreign land—in a barn. Many expected the Savior to come from a powerful family, probably born in a room in a palace, but God had a different room planned.

We may have to spend Christmas in a different location this year, we might be in different cities or maybe even outside visiting through a window, but what hasn’t changed is the reason for the season. It’s Christ’s mass—the celebration of Christ coming to Earth. It may be a different room, but it’s the same Christmas.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

—Redeemed