The Nativity: Two Very Ordinary People (And One Very Extraordinary Plan)

Nazareth was ordinary. Unremarkable. Its location north of the Galilean Plain was fitting – plain, there was nothing about it that suggested anything of note would ever happen there. No plaque, no flowers, no fuss. The kind of village where everyone knew whose goat had gotten into the veg patch and which overworked wife burnt the bread the week before.

And it was here that God chose to do His best work. (Matthew 2:23)

Mary lived in Nazareth. She was modest, faithful, the kind of girl who quietly feared the Lord without the need to announce it on pottery or needlepoint. She fetched water, kneaded dough, and prayed while her hands were busy with ordinary things.

Joseph lived there too - hands always rough, not from a gym membership but from real work, his shoulders tight from always carrying something heavy. He seldom spoke, unlike many of his peers, who gave their opinions freely......and far too frequently.                                                    

He didn't build mansions, (although his son, in time, would prepare many); he built chairs that stood the test of a belly full of Sunday roast and tables that didn’t require a beer mat to steady them.

He lived out his faith in a sawdust-coated workshop.

They noticed each other slowly - because real things often grow without fuss.

And above them, unseen, unhurried, and entirely unconcerned by the passage of time, the eternal decree of God ticked forward exactly as planned. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

Mary first noticed Joseph because he didn’t talk….he worked.

Joseph, on the other hand, noticed Mary because she laughed - not the restrained giggle you’d expect at a church tea, but the full-bodied, slightly snorty laugh that escapes a hand-covered mouth. This was the kind of laugh that sent pigeons scattering, offended the devout, and made everyone else think perhaps life really is wonderful.

What neither of them knew, of course, was that they had been sovereignly chosen by God before either of them could even spell “incarnation”

The Proposal (Or: “I have a great plan, Mary; nothing can change it”)

Joseph proposed in the way godly men have done for centuries  -  nervously, respectfully, and with enough swallowing that Mary thought he had swallowed a gnat.

Mary said yes.

They began to plan a modest, honest, God-honouring life.                                        

God began to upend it.

The Announcement (Or: The original “you might want to sit down for this” moment)

Gabriel appeared to Mary, who, being sensible, was afraid.                                  

The angel said, “You will conceive by the Holy Spirit.” (Luke 1:26-35)

Mary, well acquainted with the facts of life, realised........this announcement came with divine complications.    

But she didn’t argue. She didn’t boast. She didn't negotiate.                                                                                                           

She said, “Let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)

God willed. God spoke. Mary believed.

Joseph’s Crisis (Or: The righteous man and the very long night)

Mary told Joseph……everything.

And Joseph, well bless him, he did what any decent, godly, carpentry-trained man would do…….He lay awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling beams he had recently installed, thinking: Well, she sounded sane….but pregnant with God’s child? He felt like his brain was exploding……was this blasphemy and adultery……surely not.

He loved Mary. He feared God.

…….he just couldn’t connect the dots.

“God, show me what to do?”

He planned a quiet divorce - he still loved Mary – so he made the best decision he could ………he was wrong.

But then God spoke to him in a dream. An angel explained the situation in terms so clear that even a stunned carpenter could understand:                  

“This is My doing….oh, and another thing; I also get to pick his name. So, because He will save His people from their sins, you will call Him Jesus.”(Matthew 1:20-21)

Joseph did what truly godly men have always done when confronted with sovereign grace:

He obeyed.

The Journey (Or: The providence of uncomfortable donkeys)

Caesar Augustus, thinking he was in charge, declared a census.                  

God, knowing he wasn’t, had simply directed his heart like a stream of water. (Proverbs 21:1)

Mary, very pregnant, and Joseph, very nervous, set off for Bethlehem.           

The road is long. The donkey is stubborn. Mary’s back hurts.               

Joseph’s plans were unravelled like a cheap flax rope.                                                        

And through it all, God was at work.

Micah had written it centuries before: The Christ must be born in Bethlehem. (Micah 5:2)

The Birth (Or: When glory arrived quietly)

There was no room in the inn. Which feels wrong, but apparently was perfectly right....it wasn't about Mary and Joseph; it was about God's Son making Himself nothing.

That night, Jesus borrowed a stable for His birth.....years later He would borrow a tomb. But tonight, God arrived, not in silk and gold, but in hay and straw. With blood, sweat and tears, the eternal Son of God, through whom all things were made, was born unable to hold up His own head.                              

Not because He had lost power, but because He had taken on weakness willingly.

Jesus was not a backup plan.                                                                                             

He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (Revelation 13:8)                    

Mary held Him. Joseph trembled slightly.

The animals continued to chew.

And heaven held its breath.

The Shepherds (Or: The first congregation had a strange smell, but were very sincere)

Angels appeared to shepherds - not theologians, not kings, not the “serious religious people.” Just men who smelled like sheep and were three weeks late for a bath. They ran to the stable. They stared. They believed….they were not quite sure what they’d expected, but they were somehow sure this was it.

No altar call. No extended chorus. Just grace, revealed, received.

The Holy Family (and the long road ahead)

Mary looked at her baby and did not say, “How lucky am I?” She said, in her heart,

“How Great and Holy is the Lord”

Joseph looked at this Child and realised: This was not just a son to raise, but a Saviour to obey.

They did not yet know about the nails. Or the crown of thorns.

But God did.                                                                                                                                

When it comes to the nativity, many people have a wrong idea, a wrong view, they think God sent Jesus because His first plan in the Garden of Eden had gone horribly wrong, and so he started another plan, a plan that meant that God now had to send His own son to save us…...... a “Plan B”                                                                                           

No. The nativity, the event of Jesus being born, is the ultimate fulfilment of God’s mercy in Jesus; it is not something that God had to suddenly think up to correct a defect in the system, but it is something that was planned from all eternity.

And that’s why Christmas is not sentimental.   

It is sovereign

Not cute. But costly.

And the beginning of the road to the cross.                                                         

The wonder of the nativity is not that God found a warm corner in a cold world, but that He stepped into it at all. God was fulfilling His will. The Child in the manger was not merely born to be admired, but to be worshipped, trusted, and obeyed. And like Mary and Joseph, we are not called to understand everything before we obey - we are called to believe the Word and rest in His sovereign grace. If God can bring salvation to the world through a feeding trough, and a frightened carpenter and his wife, He can certainly work His glory through our ordinary lives, too. So, we kneel, not because the story is sweet, but because it is true.