No Room, So a Feeding Trough

Mary was back home in Nazareth, and the baby inside her had grown so big she could hardly see her own toes, when the emperor decided to count everybody.

Caesar Augustus, who ruled more of the world than anyone, ordered every family to go to its home town to have its names written down. (Emperors like to know how many people they have, mostly so they know how much tax to collect.)

Joseph came from King David's family, so he had to go to David's old town, Bethlehem. That was about ninety miles on foot. Mary, promised to be his wife, went too.

"How are you doing?" Joseph asked, about every hour.

"Still walking," said Mary.

Bethlehem was crowded with families who had come to be counted, and there was no room for Mary and Joseph where guests stayed. So Mary's first son was born in a spot where animals were kept. She wrapped him snugly in long strips of cloth (the way mothers then kept a new baby warm and still, like a neat parcel) and laid him in a manger.

A manger is a feeding trough, the box that holds the animals' hay. That night it held the Son of God.

Out in the fields, some shepherds were awake, watching their sheep through the night. Shepherds did not get invited to many dinners. They lived out on the hills with the flock, and their sandals were nearly always muddy.

All at once an angel of the Lord stood in front of them, and the glory of the Lord blazed around them, brighter than a hundred campfires. The shepherds shook.

"Don't be afraid!" said the angel. "I bring you good news of great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born for you. He is Christ the Lord. This will be your sign: you will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a feeding trough." (Christ means the King God had promised to send.)

Suddenly the sky was crowded with angels, a whole army of heaven, praising God. "Glory to God in the highest! And on earth, peace to the people he is pleased with!"

"Let's go to Bethlehem," the shepherds said to each other, "and see this thing the Lord has told us about!" (Luke does not say who minded the sheep. Perhaps the sheep minded themselves for one night.)

They hurried into town and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby in the trough, just as the angel had said.

The shepherds told everybody. "An angel came to us! The sky was full of them! This baby is the Savior!" Everyone who heard them was amazed. Mary kept every word and turned it over in her heart. The shepherds went back to their fields, praising God all the way.

Of all the signs God could have given, he picked a newborn baby lying in the animals' food box. This king had no guard at his door, and his first visitors came straight from the sheep field.

He stayed that easy to reach. Grown up, Jesus ate dinner with people the town crossed the street to avoid, and touched sick people nobody else would go near. Ever since, people from every country have been finding their way to him the way the shepherds did, straight from work with mud on their sandals, and he has always made room.