Have you ever wondered what Joseph might have been thinking as he and Mary prepared for Jesus’s birth? 

You can imagine Joseph would have had plans in mind about what he was going to do for Mary. Plans for welcoming Jesus into the world. I bet none of these plans included the cave they found themselves sheltering in, and the food trough that the baby Jesus was laid in. Joseph’s best laid plans seem to have gone astray. 

Of course, it can feel a bit like that this Christmas for us, with the Christmas Masses, the Carols on Monday night, and with the restrictions on numbers of people allowed in homes in Greater Sydney, in the next few days - everything we’ve planned hasn’t worked out quite like we had hoped. 

That’s been true of 2020 as a whole. We’ve had all sorts of plans, and time and time again we’ve had to change and adapt as we’ve encountered increased restrictions and limitations placed on us by COVID-19. 

Strangely, God’s plan looks like a plan that’s gone astray too. If we were to come up with a plan for the salvation of the world, I don’t think any of us would have chosen a little baby, so fragile, so weak, so vulnerable, so defenceless. But God’s plan - as strange and unlikely as it might seem - is perfect, because in this little baby is all of the love of God that the world needs. 

All of the love of God is lying in a food trough surrounded by straw. 

We look around our world today and we see the ravages of disease, we see the effects of war and trafficking of people, we see darkness in so many ways. And yet, perhaps in this world and in this year more than ever, we have also seen love and light, solidarity and generosity as people have looked out for one another and tried to care for one another, and as they work frantically to find a vaccine for Covid. In so many ways we have also seen the power of love at work this year. 

God’s plan won’t be thwarted, God’s purposes will not be brought to nothing. This little baby is the Lord Jesus. This little baby is mighty God. This little baby is everlasting Father and prince of peace, the wonderful counsellor (Isaiah 9.6). 

This little baby is God. And this little baby is love.