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Incongruity
We sang in church this morning about Jesus being born in a dark cold cave. We have romanticized the birth of the Lord Jesus. But this time as I read and sang the words they sunk in ... a dark cold cave. I wondered bout Mary. Was her faith shaken? She knew who this baby was-the Son of God.
Surely God would provide for the birth of His own Son '" yet here she was giving birth in a dark cold cave. A place where animals were kept. Because there was no room for them anywhere else. Did she struggle with the incongruity of it all?
We know that on that night angels were announcing His birth to the shepherds and a star was guiding the wise men to her Son; but she didn't. She didn't hear the angels or see the star. Her reality was a smelly stable and nothing to wrap her baby with but swaddling cloths something they used to wrap their dead.
As she placed Him in a trough where cattle had eaten did her heart ache? Did she struggle to hang on to the words of the angel who had appeared to her nine months earlier?
Why was it necessary for the Son of God to be born in a cave? I'm not sure we'll ever really understand. But what I do know is that when we find ourselves in unexpected dark circumstances we cannot understand it is comforting to remember that the fact that Mary was giving birth in a cave did not mean that God had forgotten her or didn't love her or His Son ... He couldn't have loved them both more. This is just proof that God's thoughts are not our thoughts and His plans are not our plans.
It isn't our understanding that will get a hold of God-it is our faith. Faith that the One who is love holds our destiny securely in His everlasting hands. And perhaps while we may not see or hear it somewhere angels are singing because His will is coming to pass ... and that is always worthy of praise.
-Maria Lund