Christmas Miracles

Have you ever thought about the little miracles God performed in order to bring us the hope that Christmas delivers? There's so much behind the scenes stuff to consider, so much more than shepherds seeing and hearing from angels in the sky.

First God moves a southern small town man, Joseph, to another small town up north. From a quick modern glance this doesn't set off warning flares. But on a closer look it does resemble a little miracle to me.

Joseph moved from renowned Bethlehem to can-anything-good-come-from-there Nazareth. This means he went from being located just off a main road leading to Jerusalem and the temple to a town positioned on a dead end road leading up a steep hill, where you couldn't see the place until you were almost right up on it.

This would be like going from walking thirty minutes to church to walking more than a couple of days to get there. And while there's a home Bible study group in town, all the major church celebrations still need to be done at the church now a couple of days away.

Not only was the distance a new issue for this righteous man, but his new town is in a part of the country thought to be a disgrace to the nation. Between the people slurring their words with other languages and keeping peace with the cruel Roman guards in the area, they were not respected by the rest of the Israelites. So now we're talking about going from an acceptable place to the bad side of the tracks. But Joseph goes to Nazareth anyway and miraculously stays.

While we don't really focus on the repercussions of Joseph following God's encouragement to take Mary as his wife, that in itself was a miracle as well. Joseph chose to put his reputation on the line and marry a girl who was already pregnant. Hello rumors. And then he has a woman living under his roof but he has to contain himself because he knows she must remain a virgin until the prophecy is fulfilled. Only with God's help was he able to do this. . .another miracle.

Then there's the census, which according to my commentaries occurred for some unknown reason. It didn't follow the need-to-take-a-census patterns in place in those days. But it was the means to get Joseph to leave Nazareth and return home to his family's land. Oh and by the way, a little food for thought, since Mary's family came from David's blood line also, more than likely her family came along for the census too.

And while our celebrations don't focus on these details as miracles, they are. God hasn't changed. He still works these little miracles into play, you know, putting the right people in the right place at the right time in order for his will and plan of action to take place and be fulfilled. We just never know what he has up his sleeve until we find ourselves in the midst of the bigger miracle.

May the miracles of the Christmas season bring you hope for eternal peace.

For a follow-up post on the birth of Jesus and the shepherds you can read my guest post on gingersolomon.blogspot.com on December 26th.