My husband Norman enjoys adult colouring books. Sometimes I see him sit back in his chair to consider what he has done and decide where he is going next. The colours used will transform a bare outline into a beautiful whole.

In this account, I feel Luke is giving us the bare outline of the Christmas story. It will be coloured in in so many different ways down the centuries, but will never be less than glorious. Today it gives us the opportunity to take stock. The basic words are good for us because we can take our time reading them and fill in the gaps with our own imagination. Perhaps we need this very matter-of-fact account to get things straight in our minds, to separate rosy glow from hard fact.

Let’s reflect that our lives are an outline to be coloured in. Sometimes we have more control than others over the colours used. This innocent baby himself will be subjected to very dark times. But once the dark colours blend with light and brightness, full glory will be revealed

‘Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, / hail, the incarnate Deity.’¹

And so to the best-known part of the story. The danger is that we read it through the eyes with which we have always read it and miss some of what happened. Here we move from a specific local emphasis to a broader picture. Having united Rome and initiated the empire, Gaius Octavius was given the title Augustus, which hints at divinity. By the time Luke was writing, emperor worship was well developed in the eastern parts of the empire. There is a reassessment of the way power is viewed. Augustus, divine emperor of Rome, appears to be in control, but the real control lies with God who is establishing his kingdom in a quiet corner of Judaea.

Joseph and the heavily pregnant Mary travel the 90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem: from what we know of travel at the time, almost certainly on foot. This was a long, wearying journey under immensely difficult conditions, at the order of an occupying power. Our traditional understanding is that they arrive, find nowhere to stay and Mary immediately gives birth, but a closer examination of verse 6 suggests a longer stay. For those familiar with other translations and the more normal ‘inn’, the use of the term ‘guest room’ (v 6, NIV) is surprising. The reasons for the change are beyond the scope of a brief note.² There is a distinct possibility that because the guest room was full, Jesus was born in the normal family living quarters, which were shared with the animals who occupied a lower level, with the manger between the two levels. If this is true, it means that Jesus, although born into relative poverty, was born into the normal, everyday world of family life. It is easy to sanitise the whole process: like any birth, it would have been painful and messy – and Jesus would have cried.

How will we ensure that Jesus has his place at the centre of the everyday world of family, work, socialising?

¹ C Wesley, 1939  ² www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/does-it-matter-that-jesus-wasnt-born-in-a-stable; Bailey, Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes, p25