Be Still And Know

Luke 2.6-7 NLT 'While they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. Mary gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.' When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem, they found that it was heaving with people who had come for the census which the Romans had demanded. In the Jewish law, censuses were forbidden and so the holding of a census was a further reason for the people to resent the occupying power. However, Joseph was a law- abiding man and if required to go to his family’s ancestral home he was willing to comply. The fact that there were no lodgings available when they finally arrived in Bethlehem must have been a horrible surprise for the young couple, and especially for Mary. We are in fact told nothing about the location of Jesus’ birth, but it is most probable that it happened in a cave. All we know is that he was placed in an animal feeding trough, a manger, when he was born. That ma