We share the same mother tongue, but often we had a hard time understanding each other.

We’ve traveled a lot this year. We began by visiting some of the oldest sites in the world: Jerusalem, Israel, and Turkey, where they consider a new building is something that was built in the 1800’s. We totaled 6,000 miles as we traveled to the middle of our country and back. We scurried home to get ready to take in a 24 day cruise to Australia. We rode atop the deep and wide Pacific Ocean, met interesting people, snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef, swimming with the fish. We explored the beautiful rain forests in northern Australia. We poked around the beautiful city of Sydney with its breathtaking harbor. We enjoyed interacting with the kind people there; we share the same Mother tongue, but often, we had a hard time understanding each other.

We were ready to come home.

While we traveled, we pined for home and family. As we waited in the airport for our flight, we reviewed our trip and its highlights. We enjoyed lounging on the tropical beaches and swimming in the warm waters, learning how to ballroom dance on the ship, wandering through a bustling city. After a few weeks, we were ready to come home.

I’ll bet Mary pined for home while traveling to Bethlehem.

Just as we were pining for hearth and home, I’m sure Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a bit homesick, too. That young unmarried girl, in her last days of pregnancy, had to travel by foot more than seventy miles—there is no record that says she rode a donkey, only the Christmas cards show that. Regardless, when her birth pangs began, was she scared? Did she wish her mother was nearby? Certainly she yearned for a warm, clean, safe, place to deliver her first boy. Though we see palm trees in the middle east, it is cold in December. Did Mary truly realize what the angel told her nine months earlier, that she would give birth to the Messiah, the Savior of the World? The Son of God?

Our choir sang on Sunday about that blessed birth and the shepherds awe when they came to worship Jesus.

Shepherds bow before the Lamb, gazing at the glory. 

Did they understand? Luke tells us the shepherd’s reaction:

Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about. So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen Him, they spread the word concerning what had been told the about this child…..
Luke 2:15-17

They believed. Do we?