Christmas Meditation: From Crib to Cross

Mary was there all the way with Jesus her son. From giving him birth and placing him on a wooden manger, the only crib to be found, to giving him up and returning Him to His Father, to die crucified on the wood of the cross.

From his birth being placed in a wooden crib to his death on a wooden cross, Mary was there with Jesus.

What a remarkable woman Mary must have been.

She became pregnant through a miracle which came directly from God.

She would be a mother and would bear a son who would be called Jesus.

And this son of hers would be called the Son of the Most High and His kingdom would have no end.

Mary was a real human being who felt her child grow and develop in her womb for nine months.

Mary knew what it was to be in the latter part of her pregnancy and need to take a long, grueling journey, to walk or ride on a donkey over bumpy roads.

Mary gave birth in a stinking, smelly, dirty stable.

Just her husband Joseph and a few filthy farm animals were there when Jesus was delivered.

For in that manger, the only crib for the Christ Child, in that stable, was not merely a baby; there was a cross.

Mary bore Christ and His Cross in her mother’s heart.

Jesus, the little boy whose first word, like our first word, may have been "mama.”

Mother that is what Jesus called Mary.

That is what we are to call her also.

Mary and Joseph taught Jesus everything.

Jesus learned his foster father’s trade of carpentry; he worked in a carpenter’s shop.

God gives us all marvelous, magnificent and miraculous gifts; births and deaths, we all must travel the road from our crib to our cross.

Remember we journey not alone but with Jesus and Mary.