Reflections on the Savior in a Stable

​by Jodean Jones, foreword by Patty Morwood

The Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard van Honthorst, 1622 AD

​Jodean Jones is an amazing woman. She always spurs me to be strong, to bow the knee to God’s will, to
ask for prayer. Now she is at a crossroads in life; her two children are grown and attending universities
on the West coast; she and her former husband have sold their stunning showcase farm. And now
Jodean is moving to the big city!
Her giftedness is reflected in seemingly disparate concentrations: culinary excellence, a just-completed
MBA, and her faithful hard-working servanthood to her church family. I am one of the recipients of her
grace. I love her.
Jodean wrote this Christmas article in 2010; it was birthed in hard times. She was still married then but
things were pretty bad. In God’s people, sanctification is always birthed in hard times, and Jodean
learned her lessons well: trust God no matter what, adore Him at all times, lean completely into the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself … and follow wherever He leads.

Reflections on the Savior in a Stable

I live on a horse farm and we have eleven horses living in our stable. Recently we hauled away twenty seven dump truck loads of soiled bedding and manure that had been removed from the horse stalls over the last six months. Twenty-seven!! In six months!!! That’s what is missing from my creches! The manure.
I can imagine that first Christmas: A scared teenage mother gave birth in a dirty barn full of animals and
their mess, without family or midwife to help, far from home. As a mother, I’ve tried to imagine what that
would have been like and I ask, “Lord, why?”
If I believe in a Sovereign God who created the earth and sent a Savior, surely I must believe that He planned Jesus’ birth in the exact way it happened … in the trenches. He arrived in a dirty place and lived life as a modest man, walked through temptations and betrayals, shunned by His countrymen and hated by the religious leaders; finally He endured condemnation and death. The human experience wasn’t sidestepped. No garden of Eden for Jesus. He came right into the fallen world. And suffered. He truly was Immanuel, “God with us.”
The Psalms are full of cries of despair. The Gospels are filled with sinful, hurting people. And our churches are too because this is still the same, old fallen place. God did not put Jesus into an easy comfortable life in a sinless world. So we can’t expect it for ourselves either.
God does things God’s way. Remember that familiar verse in Isaiah 55:8-9: "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways. And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Do you wonder why these higher ways must always be so difficult? I believe God has a better plan than a
neat life for each of us. To conform us to the image of Christ we must be in a “barn” at times, in a place
that is not so comfortable.
Let honestly ask ourselves:
If we never suffer, how will we learn empathy?
If we have no enemies, how do we learn to love those who hate us?
If we are never wronged, how will we learn to forgive?
If there are not such things as these in our lives … how will we learn to trust God and not ourselves?
I know many of you are in a “barn” of some sort. Your life is not perfect, your days are difficult. Some suffer publically, some have private hurts and struggles.
“Joy to the World” does not mean “No problems in the world.” The world is a hard place to be. Christ did not come to change that – YET. He came to be with us now, and promised an eternal life of perfection in the future.
My holiday prayer is that you look for Jesus in your “barn.” Turn to Him. Talk to Him. Trust Him. And share the real story of Christ with your friends and family, not the sugar-coated, “no manger” myth. Instead, expect life to be hard, dirty and messy. But know He understands. He is in our mangers and our stables … with us.