Four Days to Bethlehem

The longest stretch of the trip is along the Jordan Valley, south from Jezreel to the city of Jericho.  It will take about two days, maybe a little longer.  The good thing is it’s a pretty safe road, patrolled by Romans and by local troops.  It is also a familiar road, the main transit route between Galilee and Jerusalem.  Mary likely traveled this way when she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth, as recorded in Luke 1.

The big difference is that this is a one way trip.  Everything familiar has been left behind.  Every pace along the way is another step Joseph is taking to a place where he does not know how he will provide for his wife and child.  The bible says there was no room in the inn, which means that they had no relatives, no host family, no connection to this new place.

Mary is following her husband, every pace of the donkey feeling like she’s getting picked up and dropped and, when she can’t stand the beast, every waddling step a reminder that there is nothing lined up for them at the other end of the trip. 

This is not what one would call a honeymoon.  There may well have been no conversation going on, just Joseph’s stony silence, feeling the weight and measure of his failure as a husband in not being able to provide for his wife.  Maybe she started the trip trying to draw him out, trying to talk like newlyweds should.  But how long before you take the stony stare and deafening silence personally?  Did she add guilt to the burden of her pregnancy?  Was the trip ever going to end?