He’s a good man, my husband.  For the last three months or so, he has insisted every day that I eat the larger portion, and though I must exercise so as to be in full strength when the time comes, he also takes care that my work does not become too hard.  He is a godly, beautiful man, my husband.



We arrived only two days ago in Bethlehem.  He has spent the last day and a half now struggling through the crowds and chaos to register for Caesar’s census.  What need has a man to know the number of every man and woman on the earth?  He is not Almighty God, to number such things.  Joseph never wanted to come; he consented to travel only at the Romans’…firm insistence.



I, on the other hand, stay back, out of the way.  The baby will come too soon to do more than fetch the day’s water and warm our food.  This gorged and swollen town is loud and frightening and dirty, but the back corner of the inn’s stable–the only place my weary husband could find to settle us–is restful.  The light and noise are muted by straw and dust and walls, and the steady rhythm of stable life is soothing in the midst of the confusion and strangeness of these unusual days.



A small fire flickers, constrained by dirt and stones to a small circle in the stable’s center.  Stablehands and servants gather in the wide opening, sharing gossip with travelers and reveling in the light’s warmth on this chill night.  We sit at the edge.  The pains have started, hours ago now.  Joseph alternates between pulling me up to walk slow circles and pulling me down again into the warmth of his mantle to rest.  I don’t tell him, lest his own nerves worsen, but Jehovah Sabaoth hear me, I am so very afraid.



It is time, he says.  He’s gone now to fetch what women he can to assist me.  I know this child is from the Lord (surely this is not some dream or illness!), so his life shall certainly be spared until his purpose is fulfilled.  But shall mine?  Shall I live to hold a healthy son come dawn?  My own Jesus, whose very name proclaims “the Lord is salvation” and summons to mind great Joshua of old who led our people into the Holy Land.  My dear special son, who will you be?  And will I live to witness it?



I thought I was dying, that it would never never end.  Hannah Ruth sent the men away and even the maidservants kept their distance.  She has born seven children–five sons!–so my cries went unacknowledged.  Finally, when the pain was nothing but a suffocating wave, she bade me bend my knees, press my back to the rough wall, and push my son into the world.  And there he is, quiet now, fed and clean, his first purple-red cries aroused then soothed by Hannah while I slumped weak and exhausted to the floor.  When Jesus was settled in clean rags on his straw pallet and the mess of labor cleaned from my skin and the stable floor, one of the maidservants sent for Joseph to return.  Now the babe is come, we will have to stay here long enough for us both to gain our strength and for the necessary sacrifices to be offered for our purification.



Joseph and I are finally alone with our son.  We had only a moment or two to marvel together at the tiny limbs and mottled skin of our wee boy when rough and dirty men appeared like threatening shadows in the stable entrance.  Swiftly, protectively, Joseph rose to send them away, but these men–unruly shepherds, the lot of them!–begged so sweetly to see “the little king” that we could not deny them.  I cannot understand all these things–this child, these men, the glorious messengers of God.  But dawn will soon arrive, and I live!  Even the chill gray seems like a held breath of anticipation.  O, my beautiful boy, what will our tomorrows bring?



My soul glorifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour.  He looks on his servant in her lowliness; henceforth all ages will call me blessed.  So let it be unto me according to your word. (Luke 1:26-56)

(Imagined by S. J. Poorman, of All Saints’ UMC, Dec. 2009)