I am a visual guy.  I have heard the Christmas story many times over the course of my life, but after watching the clip I just posted I had a fresh (not necessarily new) thought:

I find it amazing that even at the birthing event of the Messiah, His own people had no room for Him.  Watching Joseph running through Bethlehem practically begging for a place to stay was powerful for me.  Somehow I had an image that he was walking from door to door in a neighborhood asking for a room.  But I bet it was more like a frantic, desperate attempt to protect his wife and the baby.

He had to have felt dissappointed with his fellow Jews at this point.  All these rooms filled in town, and no one wanted to give theirs up for a pregnant lady whose water broke and was having contractions every minute.  Even then they wouldn’t receive Him… if just from a pity or a humanitarian perspective.

In a way, after watching the video clip I related more with Bethlehem’s community members than the new family.  We live in a community who wants the fun Jesus, the ‘lovey-dovey’ Jesus… and not the cold, wet, fluid-covered Jesus who was wrapped in rejection from the minute Mary’s contractions began.

…and He still did it.

+Thank you Jesus for being bigger and more compassionate than I (we) deserve.+