Motherhood in the Manger
When I was growing up, my family listened to plenty of Christmas music come December. The toe-tapping radio hits, the soundtracks that played in shopping malls across America, the timeless classics like “White Christmas”…you name it. When it came to holiday tunes, we aired on the side of plenty. In fact, we had so many Christmas CD’s that they lived in a special container all to themselves underneath the TV stand. They remained there throughout the year - right next to the regular CD’s - as a bright reminder of our very favorite holiday.
Now that I’m grown, you might think that those festive, sing-along tracks of radio yesteryear remain freshest in my memory. You know the ones I’m talking about - “Jingle Bell Rock,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “All I Want for Christmas…”. But there is another CD that holds the most special place in my Christmas memories, and I’m fairly certain it’s never been played on the airwaves. You see, my sweet mom had a soft spot for the Barnes & Noble music section - the “Spotify” of the early 2000’s, if you will. And from that Barnes & Noble music section came the most delightful, eclectic, all-around lovely Christmas CD’s: instrumental renditions of hymns, jolly big-band versions of classic tunes, and Windham Hill guitar albums with names like “Winter Solstice” and “December” that practically invited listeners to sit down by the fire with a steaming mug of hot cocoa.
My favorite CD of Christmases past, however, is called “Celtic Christmas” by Katie McMahon. The album exudes Yuletide merriment; it’s filled with cheerful jigs, delightful fiddlers, and of course McMahon’s clear, angelic voice. Amidst the buoyancy of the rest of the album is a gentle song called “The Little Road to Bethlehem.” It’s a humble hymn, featuring only a harp and a single angelic voice. It’s a song that would never find itself playing in a Macy’s on Black Friday, because it’s a song that requires listeners to slow down - to put down the shopping lists, the spatulas, and the wrapping paper - and listen.
This year, I find myself listening to this track more than ever. Maybe that’s because the song is actually a lullaby. (I am a mother after all.) When my daughter was born a year ago, my days were filled with lullabies. Soft, almost-whispered words, sung with a love as pure and tender as I had ever felt. I sung melodies that had traveled throughout the ages, on the lips of mothers everywhere, as they rocked their babies to sleep. I felt the comfort of their words as I struggled to adjust to my new role, my new life, my new child. Were those lullabies for her, or for me? They were for both of us, I know now.
Before I became a mother, the story of Mary and her baby Jesus was familiar yet foreign to me. What did it mean to carry a child that was both yours and not yours? To feel the weight of new life growing inside you, knowing that that life was a precious gift from God Himself? To feel the greatest love and the greatest fear, all at once? When I became pregnant, Mary’s experiences became tangible to me. So it only makes sense that Mary’s lullaby (or the fictionalized imagining of her lullaby, at least) would also touch my heart. In “The Little Road to Bethlehem,” I hear a mother singing to her child - but I also hear a mother in awe of the life she brought forth. I imagine Mary gazing down at the baby Jesus, memorizing the creases of his newborn face, marveling at the handiwork of the God of the universe. I imagine her resting her tired body on a soft pile of hay, taking it all in: the pain, the joy, the great mystery of birth and life.
Our culture likes to think that because Mary bore the Lord Himself, her motherhood experience was elevated above that of our own. We don’t like to talk about the rawness of childbirth - so we focus on the holiness of Jesus’s birth instead of the humanity of it. In the Christmas story, we hear about the swaddling cloths but not the discomfort of engorged breasts, or the ache of sleeplessness. But I find great comfort knowing that Mary, too, nursed her tiny babe by the light of the moon, singing Him a lullaby. It brings me solace to know that Mary, too, felt the pangs of fear that each mother feels when her child is no longer safe inside of her. To hold all of these things at once - faith, fear, pain, pleasure - this is motherhood. This is humanity.
I like to think that Mary’s spirit lives on in each mother who worships and glorifies her Son Jesus. When I wake from my peaceful slumber to rock my crying baby, I too am honoring the God of the universe. I too am tending to His great gift - the child that He has blessed me with to nurture and care for all the days of her life. Just like Mary, I am participating in the great miracle of God’s plan. But that’s just what Christmas is, isn’t it? The greatest miracle the Earth has ever seen: Immanuel - God With Us. In the midst of our pain and suffering, in the midst of our fear and brokenness, comes the Child that will wipe every tear from our eyes. May every heart, every home, and every weary mother prepare Him room.
The Little Road to Bethlehem
As I walked down the road at set of sun
The lambs were coming homeward one by one
I heard a sheepbell softly calling them
Along the little road to Bethlehem
Beside an open door as I drew nigh
I heard sweet Mary sing a lullaby
She sang about the lambs at close of day
And rocked her tiny King among the hay
Across the air the silver sheepbells rang
"The lambs are coming home," sweet Mary sang
"Your star of gold, your star of gold is shining in the sky
So sleep, my little King, go lullaby."
As I walked down the road at set of sun
The lambs were coming homeward one by one
I heard a sheepbell softly calling them
Along the little road to Bethlehem
