SUMMER PODCAST REBOOT – this episode was originally published at Christmas in 2019.

Hello and welcome to Friday’s podcast. My name is Abby and I’m part of the staff team here at STC, I work on the comms team one day a week and the rest of the week I have a very different job, working in autism specialist student support.

REFLECTION:

It’s a real privilege to be sharing a thought for Christmas with you today. This week we’ve been reflecting on passages from the start of Luke which build up to the big event today, the birth of Jesus. The reading at the end of this podcast is from Luke chapter 2, verses 1-7, and today I particularly want to focus on verses 6 and 7 which say: ‘While they were there (that’s Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem), the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.’

It’s so easy to skim over these two small verses and yet they capture a moment that changed the course of history – the moment that God, through the birth of Jesus, came to dwell among His people and to restore us to right relationship with Him.

For me, the lyrics from the song ‘O Holy Night’ capture some sense of this holy moment: “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn, fall on your knees, O hear the angels’ voices, O night divine, O night when Christ was born.”

It was a truly divine moment, however reflecting on these verses this week, I’ve been struck again by the fact that Jesus was born in a manger, a feeding trough for animals, because there was no guest room available for him, or, as lots of translations say, there was no room for them in the inn. This is the baby, who, in the verses from Isaiah that we read on Monday, is going to be called the ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’ and who ‘will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness’. It is this baby’s life that starts in a manger, because there was no room anywhere else.

I think we often focus on the humble, servant-hearted, nature that God shows in coming to earth in human form, as a baby, and being born in a manger, and I think this is really true and definitely good to think about. However, as I’ve been reflecting again on these verses, I feel like God’s been challenging me from a different perspective.

Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem at an incredibly busy time – everyone had come back to their home town to register for the census – what if actually they were too busy to notice what was going on and to recognise that Jesus was coming? What if no one looked up long enough to realise that God was about to come and dwell among his people? What if they just didn’t choose to make room for Jesus and so he ended up in a manger? It’s sad to think about, but this leads me to have to ask myself, where have I not made room for Jesus? Where have I been too busy to recognise Him and what He’s doing? Where do I push Jesus out into the metaphorical stable?

As I’ve been asking God to show me where I need to make room for him, I’ve been thinking back over my last few months. In July I started studying again, part-time, alongside working full-time. I knew from the start that this was going to be a big commitment but I had it all mapped out on a piece of paper, how I was going to juggle two modules and what I needed to get done each month in order to fit in and complete my first three deadlines by December. However, a few weeks in and I was already off track, after a couple of months, I was definitely lagging far behind where I had wanted to be. By the grace of God I met the deadlines and have done okay so far, but it ended up being a much more stressful few months than I would have liked. As I’ve tried to reflect on what I can do differe...