Really? That's the Best You Could Do?

     Have you ever been in a barn? I mean a real barn, not the "farmhouse" style venues that look barn-ish, I mean a working barn. If you have a lot of adjectives come to mind, but I would bet sanitary is not on the list. I mean I can guarantee there is manure on the floor in whatever direction you look and let's not even talk about the smell. There is also noise, lots of noise. Farm animals do three things well and in abundance, they poop, they produce bad smells, and they make noise. That's the place God picked for His son to enter this world?

     We all know the story, but how often to we really think about it? The story gets cleaned up with the retelling. We use words like manger, hay, and angels. We don't use words like noisy, smelly, and manure. I think we may be doing the story a disservice by glossing over those things. The smells and noises and filth are actually a very important aspect of the Nativity story. Think about it, God could have chosen anywhere for Jesus' birth to occur. Bethlehem in a feeding trough in a barn wasn't an accident, it was on purpose. What purpose? You ask.

     Jesus came to shake things up. He was to bring salvation to everyone. What better way to make that point than to be born in the lowliest of places? The best way to reach every man is to become everyman. Yes, God could have chosen a palace surrounded by the best doctors. Yes Jesus could have grown up in luxury and lived the life of the King He is. Yes, that could have happened but it would have made the message that He came for all a lot harder to sell. Starting life in a common setting as a common person was just the first of a life of lesson Jesus would teach. Even as an infant, He didn't hesitate to get down in the muck mire this world has to offer. He went where the people were, He didn't expect them to come to Him. By being born in the dirty, noisy, smelly barn He established that He came for all, not just the clean, quiet, and good smelling. So yes, it was the best He could do. It was exactly where it should have happened.