Posada for Advent

What's a posada?, us Caucasian protestants and evangelicals may ask. Check out Wikipedia's answer. I also found the traditional children's song sung for a posada interesting as well. The Indianapolis Star did a feature on a local posada.

This e-posada keeps with the spirit on a posada, but, instead of traveling house-to-house, the holy couple is going blog-to-blog each day. It all started at the beginning of Advent. Check out the reflection from yesterday at My Four Walls and look for tomorrow's at emergingchurch.info.

Mary and Joseph, as many others have said on this chain before me, were brave. They were adventurers, they were faithful. The thing I've most thought about when considering their journey this year was something I've not seen mentioned yet. Mary and Joseph were newlyweds, just like my husband & I this holiday season. As Matthew 1:18-25 tells it, they were going to get married, Joseph found out she was pregnant, he considered what to do, leaning toward calling the whole thing off, then he had a dream telling him to marry her and he did. They had been married no more than 8 months, probably more like 5 or 6, when this journey to Bethlehem happened.

What an adventure for newlyweds! What had the preceding months been like? Were they comfortable around each other yet? Were they still glowingly, madly in love? Were they used to sharing a home, or a bed, in the unconsummated marriage? What did Joseph's family think of Mary? Did Joseph get annoyed on the road trip to Bethlehem on the donkey because of all the pit stops along the way? Did the stress of all the talk about Mary's scandalous pregnancy wear on their relationship, or strengthen it, making them stand by each other while others whispered and pointed fingers? And what of their marriage beyond Christmas? They had the challenge ahead of them of raising the Son of God. Did Joseph have hopes of apprenticing Jesus in his carpenter's shop, even before his birth? What did they talk about on the journey to Bethlehem?

If they were around today, they would have bought a "Couple's First Christmas" ornament to put on the tree in the living room. Instead, they lived the world's first Christmas as their own, in a stable, witnessing the birth of their first child, and the Savior of the world.

Lord,
You chose this couple from everyone in all of history to be the ones to be your earthly family. Thank you for choosing very ordinary people to be a part of Your great Story. Show us this season how you are working in, around, and through us. We want to be swept into Your great adventure.