The Christmas story is a story is a story of hope. The hope that comes with new life or at least that is what we like to focus on…the angel telling Mary she was pregnant, Joseph accepting Mary’s pregnancy and starting a family with her, John leaping for joy inside Elizabeth when Mary comes to her to share the news of pregnancy. We even find hope when there is no room in the inn and Mary has to give birth in a stable. A stable with real animals and surely with the real mess that goes along with it. We have transformed what must of have been a time of stress and trial into a picturesque scene for us to carve and place on our mantels at Christmas time to remind us of all of the hope wrapped up with that little child laid in the manger.
I think that it is wonderful to celebrate the hope of Christmas, but I would caution us not to do it at the expense of the rest of the story. Mary and Joseph needed the hope the angels brought them because they were afraid of how an unplanned pregnancy would impact there lives in time when Joseph would have been well within his rights to have Mary stoned because of her pregnancy. After travelling many miles (most likely on foot despite the many beautiful, creative renderings of Mary riding on a donkey) to be counted in a census, Mary and Joseph would have arrived in Bethlehem dusty from the road and exhausted. I imagine it would have been a struggle to hold on to hope that they would find a place to rest.
I think we can find as much comfort in these moments of fear and doubt as we can in the moments of hope. We have all experienced moments in our lives when things aren’t quite going according to plan – we’ve experienced the grief and frustration of something not working out how we imagined. These scriptures remind us in those moments to hold on to hope but they tell us so much more than that. They tell us that it is okay to feel frustrated or overwhelmed or angry at our situation. God doesn’t need our stories to be all sunshine and rainbows or little ceramic animals lined up just right. God is with us in all of the messiness of life. In the disappointment, in the anxiety, in the grief, in the pain God is there with us waiting for us to be ready to hope again.