Born in a Manger, Raised in a Blender!

You know the beginning of the story: During the reign of Caesar Augustus, a young virgin named Mary, and her fiancé Joseph, were on their way from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the first Roman census. She was very pregnant at the time (with a child fathered by the Holy Spirit) and she went into labor. Since there were crowds of people in town for the census, the inn was overbooked and so Mary's son Jesus was born in the stable behind the inn where the animals were fed. 

When we think about Jesus' birth, we always picture the manger scene as a peaceful tableau with the shepherds, the angels and the animals. Mary usually seems beautiful, serene and well-rested despite just having delivered a baby in a barn without the aid of a midwife or an epidural, and there is Joseph, standing next to her looking so proud and smiling at all the shepherds.... Hold on a minute!

Joseph knew that this child was not his. He knew that he and Mary hadn't "known" each other yet, in the Biblical sense of the word. It occurred to him that maybe Mary wasn't exactly the virtuous girl he'd been promised when their marriage was arranged, and he thought about not marrying her at all. Luckily an angel talked him out of it. You can read about Joseph's struggles with this issue in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 1, verses 18 and following. 

Anyway, Joseph evidently decided to trust the angel, give Mary the benefit of the doubt, marry her and raise her son as his own. Joseph was a stepdad of the highest caliber. He treated Jesus like his own son; he named him and had him circumcised when he was 8 days old, took him to the temple in Jerusalem every Passover, (Luke 2:21-52) and taught him carpentry, thereby passing along the family trade; all of which was customary for Jewish fathers and sons back then. Everyone in Nazareth assumed Joseph was Jesus' father, not his stepfather. When Jesus preached in the synagogue there, and his neighbors were amazed at his authoritative teaching style, saying "Wait a minute, isn't this the carpenter's kid?"  We also know that Jesus had brothers named James, Joseph, Simon and Judas, and several sisters (Matt. 13:53-58).

So Jesus grew up in a blended family. While the Bible doesn't give us any accounts of what that was like for Jesus or his family, I like to think that maybe they were a lot like us. I can imagine that when Jesus was seven and Joseph told him to sweep up the wood shop, that he might have said, "You can't tell me what to do cuz you're not my father!" Or maybe his sisters teased him for not being their real brother. Maybe Jesus felt a little left out sometimes. We do know that when he was 12, he stayed behind at the Temple in Jerusalem after his whole family started home. Maybe he was being just a little bit rebellious and thought things would be better if he lived with his Father.

All I know is that if the God of the universe sent his Son to earth to be raised in a blended family, then we aren't alone! To me, this says that God loves blended families. He knows first-hand that it isn't always easy, but He also knows that the family blender can be a safe place to grow up; that there is hope and love in blended families. So as you celebrate Jesus' birth this year, remember that He may have been born in a manger, but He grew up in a blender.

For more information on this and other blending family topics, read Advice From The Blender: What to know before you blend so nobody gets creamed (2007 Xulon Press) by Susan J. Hetrick. Help is also available online at www.advicefromtheblender.com.