An Unlikely Nativity - Devotion from Pastor Heather

I end up at the ER from time to time either as a pastor visiting someone who has been admitted or with someone who needs care. It is never an easy place to be.

Recently, I spent six hours sitting in the waiting room at St. Peter’s ER. On this visit, there were three infants and their worried parents waiting for care. A woman came in, transported by ambulance and then alone in the waiting room, moaning in pain. Another woman was rushed in by her stressed husband who had screeched to a halt outside the entrance to the emergency room. She sat, almost unconscious, while the admitting nurse took her information. There was also a trio of homeless men who congregated in the waiting room. They needed care and resources although perhaps not of the emergent kind. Two of the men were clearly suffering from mental illness which resulted in agitated behavior. The other, who had come in for a chest x-ray, left early when the other two men started to get loud and a little hostile. He didn’t stay to receive the results of his x-ray although he did leave with a charged phone and full water bottle.  
I sat there, with my own worries, thinking that the ER can feel like hell on earth. The sick, the mentally ill, the worried, children who are not well, resources stretched too thin. But then the Christmas story played through my mind. A manger where Mary and Joseph found shelter. An innkeeper who provided care. The baby, born sheltered instead of on the cold streets of Bethlehem.

I want the Christmas story to be precious, retold each year on the church stage with Mary and Joseph as two adorable children cradling a silent babydoll Jesus. But that’s not how Jesus comes. He wasn’t born behind the walls of the temple. He was born in the streets, sheltered only by the cover of the manger. If we believe the Christmas story is the story of God-with- us, then we might need to look beyond the controlled spaces of our church sanctuaries in order to see it in our midst. The first Christmas is a story of God’s grace reaching down to earth, bringing heaven to us in the unlikeliest of places.  

Perhaps, the ER on a cold winter night is more akin to heaven on earth than it first seems.  Three men, seeking shelter from the cold and some water to quench their thirst.  A mother, rocking her infant and whispering words of comfort while waiting for the doctor to treat her child. A woman, alone in the waiting room but about to find a warm bed and caring touch to ease her pain. A husband, entrusting his wife to the charge of the skilled doctors and nurses. A space where all are welcomed and offered grace. 

Let us celebrate the nativity story, wherever we might find it, and look for God-with-us in the gritty realities of our world, just as Jesus came to us so long ago.