The Stretchmarks of Christmas: Be willing to Travail...

We're singing "O Little Town of Bethlehem" around the table and I read the prophecy from Micah regarding the birth of the Messiah in the little backwater town of Bethlehem, in Micah 5:3... One word trips me up.

It's because I am thinking about how being a dwelling place will leave us with soul stretchmarks, that to be a womb for God will cause pain as we are stretched to the outer edges of grace and love.

It's because I've been thinking about how a Christmas that is pregnant with Christ will hurt.

Do I really understand the text? So I check Matthew Henry's commentary on Micah 5:3 to clarify that this verse is really about what I think it is: "Here is foretold that Bethlehem should be his birthplace."

So it is about Bethlehem.... then it truly is about her, Mary. I read the verse again in the King James:

Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth

Micah 5:3

(Micah 5:3 in NCV: The Lord will give up his people until the one who is having a baby gives birth )

And the definition of travail?

tra·vail (tr-vl, trvl)
n.
1. Work, especially when arduous or involving painful effort; toil. See Synonyms at work.
2. Tribulation or agony; anguish.
3. The labor of childbirth.

I close the Bible and look over at the figurine of Mary on donkey on her way to Bethlehem... she which travaileth.

There are people and situations and circumstances that will cause anguish and painful effort this Christmas if we choose to wrap around circumstances with love, make a space for the broken who don't know they are broken. But isn't His grace always sufficient, the sustaining love of the Child we are expecting? I keep bungling it, yes, but to make room in the Inn, to be a dwelling place, I will need, yes, be willing to travail...

A true Christmas will hurt as the myometrium of the soul gently stretches to harbor Grace and Love and Mercy... that we might be delivered.




Photos: a painting by Hugo van der Goes
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