Jesus in a Manger

Hey all!
It's L! I meant to post this sooner but I took forever to edit it so here it is a few days late! Enjoy!

So, as I mentioned before, I have always loved the Christmas story and I was thinking about it a few days ago while I stood around in my kitchen listening to the radio. This song called "Just a girl"by Brandon Heath was playing. It talks about how there was no room for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in the inn in Bethlehem. I heard several people mention the irony of the fact that the Son of God and King of Kings spent his birth night in a manger. As I thought about it though, I started to wonder. 

It wasn't likely a surprise. Hotels and plane flights fill up quick at Christmas and a census in those days clearly drew a lot of travelers to Bethlehem. But then again, for a pregnant women and her husband you would think a room might have been found. Jesus arranged a donkey and a Passover meal with people that seemed to be strangers later in life. Wouldn't it have been easier and more miraculous if God had just sent an angel to the innkeeper telling him to reserve a room for the couple He would show him? That would have made a great little story of faith, right? So why didn't he? 

I think Jesus wouldn't have had it any other way. He came "not to be served but to serve" (Matthew 28:20 ESV) so doesn't it make perfect sense that he began his life with sacrifice! He suffered God's wrath so that we could know His favor and love. How fitting that He would sleep in a barn so that some other family could sleep in a warm room. Isn't that beautiful?

I don't think the manger was just a humble start to a great ministry, I believe it was Jesus first act of sacrifice for the human race. after all he could have spent that night in heaven if he had been putting His own comfort first. It set the tone for the life of sacrifice he would live and the death of sacrifice he would die.
I love Christmas!
-L. 
P.S. Thanks to my good friend Maria for the drawing!

 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them 

in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God

 for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

(Luke 2:19-20 ESV)