Barns and a Simplistic Christmas

Fishing Report: Are you kidding 7 degrees yesterday morning and then ice, sleet and snow.

Christmas is close so close I think my kids can taste it. I think it must taste like a fresh, warm, homemade sugar cookie with just a touch of lemon. But the reality is that the first Christmas must of tasted or better yet smelled like a dairy barn in the spring. Thick and musty with the smells of animals but with a touch of sweetness like that of alfalfa. I have always wondered why God chose the stable instead of the inn or better yet a home. I have been reading to my kids every night at dinner an advent devotion. What a good time to talk of God and His Gift as we sup together and share in the bounty that He has provided for us. Last night the focus was to limit distractions, I thought sure we already live pretty simply. The author went on to say that is we God chose the stable not because it was a humble beginning but because there were no distractions there. I thought about that for a good long time and have come to the conclusion that God could have led them to a meager home to give birth, that would have been humble but it could have still be distractful. But to have Christ born in a stable and laid in a manger was the best and here is why I think it is the best. Born in a stable Christ was born in a place where no one is born (he was like no one else), being born in a barn connected him to the least among us, the shepherds, they would not be comfortable in a home or an inn they were at home in a barn. Why were they comfortable in a barn, because that is where there work was, the sheep, that is where they live. The Great Shepherd came into this world in a barn where the sheep live. The shepherds are His sheep, we are His sheep, I think that is we all feel comfortable in a barn and love the sweet smell of hay in the sunshine in the summer. If you have ever been in a barn there are not a lot of distractions, they are a simple affair and they practical not a lot of distractions. That is why Christ was born in a barn it is a place of simplicity and the only focus when they came to see they Christ child was Christ not the surroundings not the beautiful place but the beautiful person of Christ. Not to mention where would a shepherd rather be but in the barn with familiar surroundings and smells and the things that are most dear to His heart. I think that sums it up a barn, the Shepherd and sheep really I guess that is all that was and is needed, just the Shepherd really is all that is needed by His sheep. Keep this in mind when you go and muck Christmas up with all kinds of distractions and busyness, remember a barn, sheep and the Shepherd.