My kids have always wanted a cat. I personally have had cats in the past, but I’m not a big cat person, I prefer dogs. But they asked so often, that I finally told them that, when we owned our own home, then we could get a cat. I told them this, because we had always rented, and then when we moved to Quartzsite, we always lived in a church supplied home, and I thought that is how it would be. But, by God’s providence and through the help of family, we were able to purchase a house this past year. Well, the kids brought up getting a cat again, and I remembered my promise. So, being the good dad that I am, we got a kitten yesterday. A little, scrawny, barley anything on him cat, and we named him Skippy, after a series of books called Skippy Jon Jones. And from the time I left Yuma, where I got him, to the time I pulled up to the house, that cat sat in my lap and I petted him. This frail little thing, that was scared, and didn’t look like it would make it through the night. But the kids love him and made a bed for him, my wife loves him, and the dogs, well they’re trying to decided, treat or toy.
And it’s this idea of frailty that brings us into our final week of our Christmas series, where we will once again return to the Christmas story found in Luke chapter 2, starting in verse 1. And as we return to Luke 2:1, let’s recap the series.
In the first week we talked about how we were going to look at three moments in the Christmas story. The first moment was the angels’ singing the praise of God. In that moment we noticed that throughout the Bible, angels are only recorded singing three times. Once at the creation of the world, once when God becomes man here at the first Christmas, and once when God makes a way for humanity to have their sin forgiven and be gifted eternal life by way of accepting what Jesus did through his death and resurrection, or to sum that up in one word, salvation. Three times the angels sing in the Bible, and all three of them are monumental moments in history. And from that, we talked about how we must be like the angels, singing the praise of God for creating us, coming to us, putting on our flesh, living with us, and dying for us. We must join with the angels in singing the praise of God for that monumental moment.
Then last week, we looked at a second moment of the Christmas story that dealt with the shepherds. These salt of the earth people who worked their ordinary jobs of taking care of sheep. These people who knew of the sacrifice it took to both look after those sheep, because those sheep were very important to the world in which they lived. Not only were the sheep needed for their wool, milk, and meat, but also for the sacrificial system that showed the people of Israel their need for God to save them. These shepherds understood the need for the sacrificing lambs, and it was to the birth of the Lamb of God, Jesus, that they were invited to witness. We walked away last week, with the understanding that we too need to fully understand the sacrifice that Jesus came to do on our behalf. That he was and is our lamb, sacrificed for us.
And it’s with these two moments covered, where we’re now going to look at our last moment in the Christmas story as recorded in Luke chapter 2, starting in verse 1. Let’s read it together.
“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius [ke-i-re-nee-us] was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register. 4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. 8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’ 13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14 ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.’
“15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.’ 16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
Now, we’ve covered the angels, we covered shepherds, now let’s talk about the baby. One thing that stands out to me in the passage is that there are two items that we get told twice about this baby. These two things are first brought up in verse 7, “…and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.”
The second time these two items are brought up is in verse 12, “This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
These two items are cloths and manger.
The cloths here are literally a swaddling wrap for a baby. That makes it seem like either Mary had known that the possibility of the baby being born on this trip was going to happen, or someone from the home, who’s stable they were in, furnished the cloth. Either way, the wrapping of the baby in a baby’s swaddling cloth is important and we’ll come back to why in a moment.
The second item we see is the manger. This is literally a feeding trough for the animals. Hopefully I’m sure that they cleaned it out before putting the baby in there.
Now to understand the importance of what the cloth and the manger mean, we must understand what is being wrapped up and what is being laid down. The baby is not any other baby. Let’s let the Bible describe who he is.
In the prophet Isaiah’s self-titled book, chapter 9 verse 6 we get this description of the child, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
When prophesying about Jesus’ eventual coming to earth, Isaiah describes the child as one who will carry the government on his shoulders. Literally this means that, Jesus will be the one that carries the burden of kingship, and he will eventually rule with all the authority of a king.
Then Isaiah gives him four names. These four names each carry with them an understanding of who the child is. First off is, Wonderful Counselor, this understanding points to the child being wise and his words carry with them the knowledge that comes from God alone. Then we get, the Mighty God, literally pointing to this understanding of the child being God who has all strength of a valiant warrior. Third is the Everlasting Father, which points to this understanding that the child isn’t made at the conception within Mary on earth, but is eternal, having no beginning nor an end. The final name is Prince of Peace, which points to this understanding of the child being the one who will bring about creation’s complete peaceful existence.
These names show us just who the child is. This child is the Wise One who contains the Wisdom of God. This child is the God who fights for his creation. This child is the Eternal One, who was before the creation of the world, and through whom the creation happened. And this child is the Shalom, the Peace that the world desperately needs and longs for, but only comes from God himself.
And it’s this Wonderful Counselor, this Mighty God, this Everlasting Father, and this Prince of Peace, that is wrapped in a baby’s swaddling cloths, and lying in a feeding trough called a manger.
Do we see the monumental moment that this is? The God of creation, who needs nothing from that creation, because everything is created by him, and in fact it’s us who are in need of him, it’s this God that allows himself to be wrapped up by his creation and laid in a place made to feed animals.
This is the humility and love of God on full display in this moment. In the first week we talked about the angles singing the entrance music of God coming to earth. In the second week, we talked about the shepherds being the ones who understood the sacrifice that the child was given to provide. Here we see just who this God and sacrifice is, he is the humble one that is wrapped in the flesh humanity, and who allows humanity to wrap him in its cloths. He is the loving one who comes down from his perfect throne, and allows himself to be laid in a dirty feeding trough.
It is this same child, who Isaiah later speaks about in his 53rd chapter of his writing. When Isaiah describes the purpose of the child, “2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. 4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. 11 After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”
This is what the humble, loving God, who became a child, wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger came for. To save humanity. To break us free from a prison of our own design. To bridge a gulf that we ourselves created. And this is what we celebrate at Christmas, that anyone who would put their trust into Jesus as their Savior, would gain what Jesus has come to offer, eternal life that begins now to deal with the failing world around us and carries into eternity with him apart from any pain or suffering.
No matter if its in our mundane life, or in the pandemic landscape that we find ourselves currently in, it can be really easy to lose sight of what is Christmas. But we must realize what Christmas is, the loving humble God come down to take on human flesh and save us from ourselves. From our sins that lead to broken relationships, wars, hatred, and ultimately to both our bodies dying and an even worse, eternal death. Each of us is on that path to an eternal death apart from the God who came down at Christmas. But our path can change, if we accept what this God has to offer. If we accept Jesus’ work on our behalf that happened on the cross. He took our punishment for our sin, so that we would not have too. He took the ultimate death on our behalf, so that we can have eternal life. And that’s what those cloths and manger point us to. To the God who came for us, and did everything possible to bring us to himself.
As we celebrate Christmas this week, I want to challenge you to recognize three things of Christmas. First, the loving humbleness of God that is found in the cloths and the manger; this perfect God who is need of nothing came to die for you and me, to bring us out of death and into life, because of his great love for us.
Then once you recognize what he has done, ask yourself, have I accepted it personally. What is required of each of us, is that we must personally accepted Jesus’ offer of the forgiveness of our sins and his eternal life. A pastor can’t do it for us, our family can’t do it for us, not even our good deeds can do it for us. We must accept the free gift of salvation on our own, relying solely on Jesus for it.
Finally, we must live for Jesus. We must begin to do his will and not our own. This is done through prayer, through Bible reading, through gathering with other believers as the Church, and most importantly by learning to rely on God’s Holy Spirit to bring us closer to him.
So, as we walk the last few days towards Christmas, I want to challenge you to take time and focus in on what Christmas really is. God come down, wrapped in human flesh, to save us from ourselves, and an eternity lost in death.
The first Christmas was a moment in time that radically changed the world, and it is that same moment in time that will radically change our lives if we trust in the humble loving God, who allowed himself to be wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger by the creation he came to save. What are you going to do in this moment, in light of all that God has done for you in that first Christmas moment?
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