Born in a Barn

Today’s Thought

Have you ever pondered the way Jesus, God’s great gift, our Savior and King, entered His earthly realm? If it were me, I would have come in on flaming chariots with the heralding of the most glorious angels blowing trumpets saying, "Hail the King. The King has arrived." I would have prepared the biggest celestial light show and a magnificent heavenly fanfare so that men of all tribes and tongues would have immediately recognized me and bowed their knee.

Not Jesus. Not the Gift of God. Not in this Kingdom. Jesus chose to be conceived inside the body of a young teenage girl and be BORN as a tiny baby, in a small Jewish village, to parents of humble means, in complete obscurity. He was born in a barn because there was no room for Him in the inn. A barn–the Son of God entered the world amid the bleating of goats, the cackling of chickens and a stench of... Well, you get the idea. This was His grand entrance!

You might be saying, but there were no angelic announcements made when I was born! The angelic announcement was made to a small group of shepherds (probably 7–10-year-old little girls) in a field with no one but sheep to discuss the matter with. Kings did come to visit Him, but they left in anonymity and disappeared silently into history. It appears He lived quietly for the first few years in a small, rented house in Bethlehem, disappeared into Egypt, and then lived an anonymous existence with His parents until He bursts on the scene at around 30 years of age.

Why this entrance? His entrance IS the very essence of the good news we celebrate at Christmas and a new way of life in this heavenly Kingdom come down. He “snuck” into a world where people feared God, His Father, with such terrible force and were so weighed down by the countless laws contrived by religious men that they had no hope of approaching Him let alone knowing Him and being loved by Him. God was a far off, unapproachable creator who was ever angry at man’s sin and weakness.

So in walked a baby, a tiny, defenseless baby—born in a barn among the lowest of the world—born to the poor, the marginalized, the outcast of society—growing up in a simple village with a simple way of life. The message . . .

Your God, your Father is approachable, available. He understands your life, your pain. He cares. He is near. He is a God, a Savior, a King utterly unlike anything imagined. He is Jesus, Messiah arisen out of the glory of a smelly barn! The message of the barn...He is here...He is available...He is approachable...He’s removed every obstacle of fear...come, behold the Child born King of the Jews!

Think It Over

• If you had been God planning the entrance of your great gift, your Son and the Savior of the world, how would you have him enter the world?
• In your own words, why did Jesus come this way, and how should it affect how you come to him daily?

Let’s Pray

Oh, Father, help me to see the message of the barn. I am so blind, and so often I miss the point you were trying to make. Help me see the innocent Jesus born there—the approachable king who came. Remove every barrier in my mind and heart that keeps me held back from running to you because of fear, for the message of the barn was and is...fear not, your king has come...