I’ve heard it said that our sense of smell has the greatest power to evoke memories. That is, certain scents can recall to mind memories, even distant memories, associated with that smell. I have had this experience before, but I think for me, music does this more powerfully. I feel like I have a soundtrack for my life. There are certain songs or pieces associated with certain points in my life, or even specific events. This is true of the song we just sang (the popular hymn and Christmas carol) “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” My sister and I discovered a few years ago this song calls to mind for both of us a young man named Darren. Darren was the 16-year-old son of one of my Dad’s work colleagues. It was early December probably about 20 years ago that Darren was killed in a car accident. He was street racing with some of his friends and he lost control of his car. He wasn’t buckled.
I think it must have been that “O Little Town of Bethlehem” was playing in the background when my parents told my sister and me about Darren. We had only met Darren and his family once or twice before; but without fail, Darren is the person my sister and I think of when either of us hears that song. I remember going to Darren’s receiving of friends and seeing the great sorrow of his parents. I also remember that they parked his wrecked car at a busy intersection in their hometown with a sign urging young drivers to be careful and buckle up.
I think my family long ago lost contact with Darren’s parents. But I can imagine that the loss of their young son still brings them sorrow even today. The loss of a loved one is always very sad, but that sadness seems to be magnified greatly when that loved one is your child. Darren’s parents have had to deal with something that none of us ever wants to experience. They have had to take a journey that no one wants to take.
The same was true for Mary and Joseph, Jesus’ earthly parents. We have spent the last few weeks following Mary and Joseph as they have prepared for the birth of the baby who would be known as Jesus Christ. We’ve talked about how risky this was for both of them because they were not yet married. And we have seen how Mary and Joseph, being righteous and humble servants of God, opened themselves to the great work of God in their lives so that God’s will might be done. Then, last week, we went with Mary to Ein Karem and the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah, and we watched as Mary’s spirits were lifted by Elizabeth and Mary praised God for the work he was doing through her.
Mary’s visit to Elizabeth took place at the beginning of her pregnancy. Today we pick up the story at the end of Mary’s pregnancy. Based on Matthew and Luke’s telling, it seems that when Mary returned to Nazareth after visiting Elizabeth, Joseph returned with her, and they were married. Now this wedding would have been something like what we call a “hurry-up” wedding these days. Mary and her family wouldn’t have taken time to plan an elaborate ceremony and festival. Mary was pregnant, and she and Joseph needed to be wed quickly, so they were.
Now, it was custom that the man and wife would live in the man’s hometown, but we must assume that because Mary was at this point halfway through her pregnancy, they thought it best not to try and travel the ten days back to Bethlehem yet. Instead, Mary and Joseph began making preparations for the coming baby in Nazareth. Mary had probably made plans with a midwife. She and Joseph had surely determined where the baby would be born. By the time the eighth month rolled around, they had everything laid out. And then something unexpected happened. The Roman Emperor called for a census of the entire Roman world. Now, this census was surely for purposes of levying taxes, but it didn’t change the fact that a now very pregnant Mary, due any day, would have to travel with her husband Joseph to Joseph’s hometown of Bethlehem. They would be taking that ten day journey...again!
Can you imagine how Mary must have felt?!? Here is this woman who has given herself over completely in service to God. She has risked ridicule, and even death, in order to humbly serve God’s will. And now, just as it is time for the baby to be born, she has to travel to another town, ten days away. The baby could be born on the road, at great risk. And should Mary and Joseph happen to get to Bethlehem before the baby is born, she hasn’t made any arrangements there. Who will help her birth the baby? Where will it be born?
Yes, it seems that Mary and Joseph just can’t catch a break. I imagine that Mary must have been quite upset. I can almost hear her crying out to God. “God, how could you?!? I have given everything to you. I said, ‘Here I am, a servant of the Lord.’ I’ve risked my relationship with my family and my community, even with Joseph. I took on the shame that went with a hurried marriage, enduring the looks and whispers as I walked by my family and friends. I have carried this baby for nine months. And now you do this? I can’t have my baby in Nazareth? You took that away too? Why couldn’t you stop the census? Why couldn’t you have made Caesar wait, just two months? Why, God, why?”
Upset though they surely were, Mary and Joseph made the journey back to Bethlehem. It was a journey they did not want to take. This happens sometimes, doesn’t it? Like Darren’s family. We have to undergo these journeys; maybe they’re dangerous, or long, or arduous. Perhaps that journey requires us to move away from family and friends in order to work. Maybe it’s unemployment or foreclosure or bankruptcy. Perhaps we’ve had to watch a family member struggle against an addiction. Maybe it’s a fight against cancer or MS or Alzheimer’s. Or maybe we have had to say farewell to someone we love. We feel like we are doing everything right, but then everything goes wrong as it did for Mary and Joseph.
Like Mary and Joseph, all of us find ourselves forced to take journeys we do not wish to take. These journeys are not prescribed by God, but by life’s circumstances or the will of others. In the midst of them we may be disappointed and wonder if we have been abandoned by God; or maybe we are simply confused about why we’ve had to travel such roads. These are the emotions we feel in such circumstances, and Mary probably felt some of these same emotions on the journey to Bethlehem.
But in spite of all, in the humble confines of a stable, Mary gives birth to Jesus the Christ. Our Christmas carols sometimes miss the reality of what Mary was experiencing that night. We sing, “All is calm, all is bright.” but it was not like that. It was disappointing and depressing and hard. Life can be that way. And the long-awaited Messiah’s birth came in the midst of it all; the messiness and disappointment and pain. It’s the story we find in scriptures over and over again, and the truths I think we find in our own lives; God does not abandon us on these difficult journeys. Even more than that, so often, somehow, God works through them. We look back years later and can see how God took adversity, disappointment, and pain and used these very things to accomplish his purposes; as God certainly worked through Mary and Joseph and their journey to Bethlehem to bring into this world a Savior.
Several years ago, there was a ship wreck. Only one of the crew survived, and after several hours floating around in the ocean, he washed up on the shore of a small, uninhabited island. He was exhausted, and without food or resources, he feared for his life. He cried out to God to save him. Every day he scanned the horizon, searching, hoping, and praying for help to come. Finally, he managed to build a rough hut to give him shelter from the harsh elements. One day, as the man returned to the hut after hunting for food, he was stung with grief to see his little shelter engulfed in flames and a cloud of smoke. The worst had happened, and the man fell to his knees in tears. But early the next day, as the man woke from a restless sleep, he saw a ship on the horizon. Within an hour, the ship drew in and rescued him. He asked the crew, “How did you know I was here?”
They replied, “We saw your smoke signal.”
Maybe the difficulty you have now or have been through is the smoke signal that will lead to great blessing. That was certainly true for Mary. As she took the difficult journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, God was with her. And then in a humble stable in Bethlehem, she gave birth to “Emmanuel,” God with us. Through her adversity, Mary came to experience a great blessing. And because of Emmanuel, the same is possible for us as well.
God’s greatest work often arises out of the journeys we don’t want to take. God has a way of wringing good from disappointment, suffering, and pain because God is with us every step of the way. I believe that with every fiber of my being, even when it seems like everything is going wrong. It is what gives me hope, and it is what I celebrate this Christmas, every Christmas. Emmanuel, God with us. Let us pray:
Lord, thank you for the way you bring good from suffering. Please help me to remember that you promise never to leave, nor forsake us. Bring good from the adversity we experience, grant us peace when we take those journeys we don’t want to take, and help us remember this Christmas that you are Emmanuel. Amen.
