Being born

Im watching One Born Every Minute.  First time Mums.  Fifth or sixth time Mums, young couples, older couples,  premature babies, cleft palate babies, easy deliveries, c-sections...... really its amazing any of us makes it into the world there are so many variables and things which could go wrong!

I always stop to think at this time of year of the enormous risk God took in becoming a baby 2000 years ago.   Its difficult and dangerous enough being born in 2014, in the UK, in an NHS hospital surrounded by technology and medical expertise.  But imagine being born back then.  Imagine what the death rate must have been amongst mothers and babies - it is probably not much different these days in some of the poorest countries in the world.  How scared must Mary have been - God really did put that poor girl through her paces.  First off she gets visited by an angel.  Scary stuff.  Then something happens to her ( the Spirit of the Most High overshadows her ......  what must THAT have been like!!!??)  the result of which is she finds she is pregnant.  And not married.  She has to endure who knows what sort of abuse and rejection from her family and friends and community.  So she goes to seek solace with her cousin Elizabeth and tries to hide away whilst she works out what to do.  Then. when it all looks as though it might finally be turning out OK - Joseph has not divorced her having had his own mind blowing experience with God, she suddenly finds herself on a donkey trekking the three days to Bethlehem when she is about to give birth.  Poor girl.   You have to have been nine months pregnant to really appreciate just how horrible that must have been

She goes into labour - which is a terrifying enough thing to happen.  And we read the Bible story forgetting that most first labours can take 24-36 exhausting hours.  Who knows how long they were traipsing round Bethlehem trying to find somewhere to stay before they finally opted for the cow shed?  How terrified must Joseph have been knowing that this God-gift of a child was coming into the world and that he was going to have to deliver it?

I remember what it was like giving birth.  I did it three times.  It was not fun.  Without medical intervention Sam, who got stuck, probably would not have been born alive and I might not have made it either.  Having babies is a painful, long, difficult and often dangerous thing to do.   Hats off to Mary and Joseph for somehow getting through it and safely delivering Jesus.  I'd like to think that they had some help - some local midwife or experienced mother hearing about them and coming to help with the birth.  Perhaps the innkeepers wife taking pity on them and bringing them a few bits and pieces to make them more comfortable.    The

likelihood is that they weren't actually in what we would think of as a stable...... more like the room above the cowshed . Warmish but smelly .

Anything could have gone wrong.  But it didn't.  In His birth Jesus puts Himself right at the heart of the human experience.  He doesn't shrink away from poverty and pain and displacement and aloneness.  In His incarnation He embraces danger and uncertainty and mess.  He makes Himself supremely vulnerable and puts Himself completely into the hands of His own creation.

And what do we do with this God who wants to identify so completely with us?  Who wants to be able to say about every aspect of our lives ' I know - I've lived it too' ?   Do we nurture His life, however small, in us.  Or do we nail Him up and walk away from Him?