The AIM Meeting Message: The Cost of Christmas

Someone once suggested that we imagine one aspect of the cost of Christmas this way. The angel Gabriel comes to a young Palestinian girl and says she is to give birth to the Lord, the King.

"I think you must have the wrong Mary," she would have replied. "I mean, you'll need someone influential, important, of royal descent, well-off (you cannot have the Lord running around in rags or receiving a sub-standard education now can you?)... If the Lord is to be born into poverty, well, you'd need an experienced mother, one who already has several well-adjusted and healthy kids... I don't even know how to hold a baby, and you're telling me that my first baby will be the Lord?! What if I drop him? And... Gabriel... do you really think anybody willl believe that this child was conceived of the Holy Spirit?! Don't you think more people will conclude that I am covering up an escapade with some Roman soldier or that Joseph and I have gone too far in our relationship and disobeyed the law of God? In either case, is there not the possibility that I will be stoned for fornication? Lord, what will my family say? Will they believe my case or will they disown their daughter of dishonor?"

"And by the way, what is Joseph going to say?" Mary continues. "Imagine the scene. 'Why Mary, you're looking big. Why Mary! You're pregnant! Who with?!' And I answer, 'With the Lord.' What's his line after that? 'Hmmm... that doesn't happen everyday?' He will know that he is not responsible for my condition. What will he say? Will he still be willing to marry me? Am I willing to give him up if it comes to that? And what about the child? Will he not carry the stigma of illegitimacy with him throughout his entire life?"

In that brief moment in the angel's presence, all of Mary's dreams for the future flashed before her mind, and she could see each one of them shattered. Little did she know that that which was better than her dreams was, however, just blossoming.

Take a moment this Christmas to focus on the human part of this story, the part that says nothing beautiful and eternal can happen without a cost involved. With the birth of Jesus came a wealth of complexities for Mary and Joseph that would only culminate 33 years later in Mary standing before the cross watching her son die. Jesus says in the Bible: Count the cost. And counting that cost, began at Christmas. It culminated as Jesus gave up the perfection of heavenly fellowship and came down to this world as a limited, lowly babe to find that his first welcome in this sinful place was "there is no room for you in the inn" and that improper and irreverent greeting would only be followed with a life of rejection, betrayal, abandonment, insult, hatred, persecution, torture, and painful death. Think of the cost in grief, confusion, shame, misunderstanding, and possibly worse that the Lord will cause us to pay for the things of eternity to bloom forth from our lives. Let God remind you of all that the Christmas story means for our salvation as well as our discipleship. Are we willing to count the cost this Christmas? Will we, like Mary and Joseph, be willing to endure the judgments of others, the shame, the re-direction of our plans, the confusion, the sorrow, and whatever else the Lord would call us to that His glory might be revealed in a dark and dying world? And, as we contemplate this question, let us be reminded of all that the obedience of Mary and Joseph brought forth: the birth of Jesus and his work of salvation for all who existed, exist, and will exist on earth!