The Message in the Manger

The holiday season brings some of the most joyful times of our life! Some of us spend our time planning tasty meals around the table and others plan extravagant adventures together with our family. The music that we listen to as we are driving down the highway changes to those classic holiday tunes and the movies that we watch start to reflect those picture perfect magical moments. The calendar begins to fill up with gatherings of friends and family and so much of our energy is spent on making sure that we are doing all of the right things. I have to admit that there is no other time of year that I look forward to more than the holiday season.

That introduction is what I would call the picture perfect perspective on what we would consider “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!” I am confident that there are some who truly live out those perfect holidays with their family at one point or another, but I am also confident that most of us do not. The truth is that even though I have looked forward to the holiday season year after year, I have been met with so many years of disappointments and frustrations as I have tried to navigate through the hustle and bustle of Christmas chaos.

We have tried Christmas in as many different ways as possible throughout my life. We have had the opportunity of loading up in the car and going to our nearest Christmas Tree Farm where we picked out our tree, strapped it to the top of the vehicle and placed it with perfection in our living room. We have also gone to our local hardware store and picked out the cheapest fake tree that we could find and brought it home and loaded it down with ornaments. We have spent every penny that we had to make sure the tree was loaded with gifts and the years where it maybe wasn’t quite as much. There have been vacations planned around the holiday season and others that we decided to stay home and enjoy our time together. There have been times that every weekend was filled with another holiday party and then other years where it seemed as if we did not do much of anything or see anyone. One thing that we have found to be true, no matter what we are doing, where we are going, or how decorated our home is, our heart always comes back to the message in the manger.

The real question that we are all faced with is what are we seeking that is greater than ourselves? Is there something about all of the decorations and presents under the tree that gives us a sense of satisfaction? Do we do all of this to make ourselves feel better? Or does it actually lead to us feeling worse because of the pressure that we tend to feel to meet the expectations of those around us? In most cases the family expects to gather together, the kids expect to open gifts, and the stores expect us to visit, but have we ever stopped to think about God expects?

I will admit that for many years of my life I found myself from one holiday season to the next participating in all of the festive and fun things and never once stopped to consider the real reason for this time of celebration. I could name all of the favorite carols and decorate a tree like it belongs in a magazine, but those things somehow got pushed to the top of my list of priorities and I found myself busy but empty. The house was decorated and the trips were booked but somehow the commercialized Christmas became front and center over the message in the manger.

Luke 2:10-12 “but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior – yes, the Messiah, the Lord – has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize Him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”

The very first Christmas night did not have fancy lights hanging from the eve of the barn, only the reflection of the moon shining in through the window, accompanied by the stars that were made to worship Him. There were no presents wrapped in fancy paper with giant bows – only a baby wrapped in milk rags. The air was not filled with the smell of gourmet Christmas cookies or sweet hot chocolate – but of the distinct smell of the barn animals that were sharing their home with this precious family that night.

If we read the story of how Mary and Joseph were traveling on their journey into Bethlehem, it almost seems as if they ended up in the barn because there was no room for them in the inn. That is certainly true from the surface level, but we cannot forget that this is not just an ordinary child being born this night – it is the son of God! If we believe that God is able to speak and form all of creation from the beginning of time, then certainly making room in the nearest hotel would not be an impossible task.

Our understanding of this first Christmas should not be that it just so happened that they ended up in the nearest barn they could find, but that God orchestrated every detail so that His Son, was not just born in a barn by chance, but because lambs are not born in hotel rooms, they are born in barns! And they are certainly not placed into cribs, which brings us to the manger.

The announcement of this glorious birth was not posted on Facebook with a picture perfect image and a little monogrammed blanket, but it was given directly from heaven to the shepherds that were in the nearby fields. Why would a shepherd be concerned with the birth of a child? In most cases, unless it was a family member of theirs, it would not be significant for them, but that changes when we remember that they would certainly be concerned with the birth of a lamb. Their understanding of what was happening on this night is far greater than their short appearance in the text – it was the start of sharing the good news that salvation had arrived to all people.

The real message of the gospel can be found in this text and Luke is clear to record exactly what the sign of this good news and peace will entail. The text indicates that there are 3 things that the shepherds will be looking for concerning this birth announcement, there will be a baby that was just born, wrapped in cloth, and it will be found lying in a manger. Sounds a bit odd for a baby that would be called the Messiah, the Savior, the Lord of all – but a sign nonetheless. The shepherds were intrigued with this announcement after all of heaven joined in an eruption of celebration, and they went into Bethlehem looking for Him.

The Baby, the strips of cloth and the manger are found in verse 12 as three identifiable characteristics to this announcement they have just received. The shepherds are told that they will find a baby – this is not the initial sign even though we know who the baby is from the text, they would not be able to recognize this baby based on this one characteristic. In fact, are we certain that only one baby was born on this night? A baby being born could not be the one thing that set this night apart. If they were to use this one sign as the only sign, it could be near impossible for them to find exactly which new born baby was the savior of the world. They needed a little more to work with.

The scripture continues with the baby will be wrapped snugly in strips of cloth. Well, if you know anything about babies being born, it seems as if all of them are wrapped in some sort of cloth just moments after being born so this does add another sign to the description, but is it the sign that they need in order to know that they have found the Messiah? I am thinking not. Again, they are going to need a little more to work with if they are going to be looking for this baby that has come to save the world.

However, the last few words of this descriptive line of scripture says that this baby will be born, wrapped in strips of cloth, and will be lying in a manger. Wait? The mother isn’t going to be holding Him? What about the crib? Aren’t babies supposed to be in cribs? Not in this case, we finally have something that is a sure indicator to set this one apart from all of the others. I realized that somewhere along the way the word manger has been overlooked from time to time. I have said it many times when quoting the birth of Christ story – that He was born in a manger. I have heard it preached from others that Christ was born in a manger to offer salvation to all of us, but that one little line is actually not accurate at all. Could it be that we have missed the sign? I mean I do know the song Away in a Manger, no crib for a bed! What is significant about a manger?

Christ was not born in a manger, He was born in a barn, and laid in a manger. The manger is actually the sign unto the shepherds that they had found the Messiah because babies were born, wrapped with cloth, and placed into cribs but in this case, the baby would be placed into a feeding trough. A what?! A trough?! Disgusting right?! You have no idea! God decided that it would be fitting for His son to be laid in a feeding trough? Hmm, sounds like a good place to find the bread of life.

The first time I took a moment to dive deeper into this scripture I needed a minute to grasp the complex and intricately designed plan that God had for His son to be born in a place that most of us would not go, and be laid into the place where only the animals come to eat. The good news does not begin at the level that we would expect, but at the level that we would least expect. The peace that the angels spoke of does not being around the dinner table with all of the fancy decorations and gourmet cuisine but actually begins out in the barn where most of us would not consider going. The dark places of our life that we do not invite others into and the messy areas of our past that we pray no one ever finds out about is where the true meaning of the Gospel beings. It is not the gifts that are wrapped and placed neatly around the tree, but the true gift that was wrapped and placed into the manger where the animals gather around.

You see, if we are not careful, we will continue to commercialize Christmas to the point that we will trade the manger for the table lined with dinner plates from Pottery Barn and food cooked to perfection. Somehow it has become easy for us to focus on making sure that our gifts are wrapped with the finest of glitter and bows and miss the fact that God’s gift was wrapped in milk rags.

You see in order for this to be the good news that Luke is writing about – it has to be made available to everyone and Christ could not come to save everyone if He was born at a level higher than those He came to save. He could not offer Himself as a sacrifice if He was not born as the Lamb for that specific purpose. He could not offer you and I peace and comfort in our life as the bread of life if there were no manger. The sign unto us is the manger!

The manger represents every single area of your life that you might consider broken or hidden. It represents the places in your life that you would not invite everyone to sit down at and observe. It represents the area of your life that you push away because you do not have room for it in all of the hustle of your busy schedule, but it also represents the area of your life where joy begins and peace is manifested. The manger is the area that Christ came to lay himself just for you and I so that we can proclaim this good news to everyone around us. God did not inspect how dirty or unsanitary the manger was before placing His son in it, He laid His son in the manger so that it too could experience the power of His presence!

I want to encourage you to consider the message in the manger when you find yourself exhausted from all of the demands that commercialized Christmas has placed on you. I want to give you permission to embrace peace in your life, and wrap your arms around the good news. It does not matter if you have 25 presents under your tree, 250 presents under your tree or none. You have been given the greatest gift of all and He was wrapped for you, and not placed under a tree, but born so that He would be nailed to a tree so that you might have everlasting life and be saved from the sin and destruction of this world.

So what exactly does God expect from us? Absolutely nothing in our own ability! We have somehow confused the good news that God offers to all of us with a performance based grace. It does not matter how many times you attend your local church, or how many presents you buy for the family that doesn’t have the means to do so – fulfillment is never found in those things. We can get lost in making sure that we mark all of the boxes and attend all of the formalities but at the end of the day the only thing that points to the sign of the Savior is the manger. Jesus said Himself that He was the bread of life and that only through Him can we find true satisfaction. So I want to encourage you to take a step back from what tradition has encouraged you to do, and what religion has required you to do and gather around the manger for your next meal. You might be surprised to find that the manger has its way of bringing gifts into your life that you never even considered possible, even if they have to come chase you down!

The message in the manger is your sign that you have been set free from anything that has held you in bondage and redeemed from everything that has brought you shame. The gift that was given to each of us was love and as long as there is love – there will be Christmas! So give that gift to someone this year because it has been given to you – love them anyways! Love them as you have been loved and share the message with them that we can only find in the manger.

With so much love – from my family to yours – Merry Christmas!