The Mystery of the Manger
Chuck Sligh
December 7, 2014
TEXT: Luke 2:1-7 – “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. 2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) 3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) 5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. 6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”
INTRODUCTION
A big mystery of Christmas is how kids manage to mangle the words of Christmas songs.
Illus. – On another occasion, after Johnnie, who had a little sister named Olive, asked for a candy snack, his mom said, “I’ll give you one if you can name two of Santa’s reindeer.”
He said, “Well, there’s Rudolf…” and then he drew a blank.
Suddenly he shouted, “Oh, I know! The other reindeer’s name is OLIVE!”
“Olive?” his mom said. “What makes you think one was named after your sister?”
“You know,” he said, and he began to sing, “’Olive,’ the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names...”
Even adults encounter some mysteries at Christmas.
Illus. – In a small Southern town there was a beautifully crafted nativity scene. A Northerner passing by stopped to see it, but was mystified when he saw that the three wise men were all wearing firemen’s helmets. Unable to conceive of any reasonable explanation, he finally left in bewilderment.
Stopping at a Quick Stop on the edge of town, he asked the lady behind the counter about the helmets.
She said, “Why, you Yankees never read the Bible, do you?”
The Northerner happened to be a pastor, so he said, “I don’t know about other Northerners, but I assure you that I do indeed read my Bible every day and I certainly don’t recall anything about FIREMEN in the Bible!”
With all seriousness, she looked condescendingly at the Northerner and said, “Sir, it says right there in the Good Book, ‘the three wise men came from afar.’”
Ah…the mysteries of Christmas.
The first Christmas night, when Jesus was born, was a night of many mysteries—real mysteries, but the humorous kind I’ve been joking about.
Think about it:
• A mysterious star in the sky never seen before.
• Mysterious visitors from the East following that star.
• Mysterious visitations of angels.
• Mysterious dreams and visions.
• The mystery of a pregnant woman who had never been with a man!
• And the greatest mystery of all—the Incarnation: that God would come to this earth as a human to suffer and die and bear the sins of those who despised and rejected him!
Everything about the first Christmas reminds us that it was a strange night of miracles and mystery.
But one of the most compelling mysteries to me is THE MYSTERY OF THE MANGER.
Look in our text at verse 7 – “And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”
Now the word manger has morphed to mean a stable where animals are kept, but actually scholars tell us the word translated “manger” literally means an animal feeding trough—probably something like one of these picture in the sermon slides. The idea of Jesus being born in a stable or a cave may be true, but the Bible doesn’t really say that. This tradition has grown up simply because of Luke’s reference to Jesus being laid in a feeding trough.
But here’s the mystery…
• Why was Jesus in a feeding trough to begin with? Was this not the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? Was He not THE VERY GOD OF THE UNIVERSE?
• Why was He not placed in a beautiful, gold-carved cradle in a rich man’s mansion, instead of a lowly feeding trough for sheep or cattle in a cave or a stable to common labor folk?
The manger captures for us three important truths about Jesus, so let’s unravel the mystery of the manger this morning:
I. FIRST, THE MANGER PERFECTLY PICTURES JESUS’ REJECTION
You see…
• There was no room for Jesus in the inn.
• There was room for BUSINESS in the inn.
• There was room for PLEASURE in the inn.
• There was room for OTHERS in the inn.
But there was no room in the inn for Jesus.
So SOMEPLACE had to be found, for Mary was going into labor at any time! Perhaps she was already in labor when someone, seeing their desperate situation, offered his stable where he kept his animals.
Illus. – One of the member families of our church in Wiesbaden, Terry and Cindy Walker, was stationed at Fort Campbell at their next duty station. When Cindy’s water broke with child number 3, they raced to the hospital.
But they had to make a little detour along the way! Cindy started screaming, “Terry, she’s coming! Now! Pull over NOW!”
Suddenly terrified, Terry said, “But honey, we’re not at the hospital yet.”
Cindy said, “Pull over NOW!! Right this minute OR I WILL KILL YOU!”
Okay, would Cindy have literally killed Terry if he hadn’t pulled over that very minute. Uh…absolutely!
Anyway, Terry pulled over into the parking lot of a Dairy Queen…and out popped little Sarah Walker before even the Emergency Medical people arrived!
Maybe it wasn’t quite that urgent when Jesus was born, but there was no room at the inn for Mary to have her baby, so perhaps when Mary’s water broke, a stable was the nearest shelter they could find, and when Jesus was born, the only thing to place him in was a common, everyday, dirty feeding trough.
But here’s the thing I want you to see: It all happened because of REJECTION—because there was no room in the inn.
It’s not really so surprising, is it, that even at His birth—His very entrance into the world—he would be rejected? The Bible tells us that all His life, Jesus was rejected.
John tells us about this in the amazing rejection passage in John 1:1-14. In these verses, John calls Jesus “the Word,” to show that He was the very expression of God on earth, just as a word is the expression of a thought, and He tells us in verse 14 how the Word became flesh and dwelled among us.
What was “the Word”—Jesus Christ—like?
• Verse 1 says He was WITH God and that He WAS God, teaching that He was a member of the Trinity, every bit as divine as the Father and the Spirit.
• Verse 3 says He was the CREATOR – “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” and verse 10 tells us “the world was made by him…”
But how was the Word—God the Son, the Creator—received by mankind? Verse 10b says “…and the world knew him not.” Even His own people, the Jews, rejected Him – Verse 11 says “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”
Truer words were never spoken:
• The PHARISEES rejected Him.
• The SADDUCEES rejected Him.
• The SCRIBES rejected Him.
• Most of HIS OWN FAMILY rejected Him. – Not until after His resurrection did two of Jesus’ brothers, James and Jude, believe in Him.
• And to this day, the Jews have largely rejected Jesus as their Messiah.
So Jesus faced rejection all His earthly life…and the world STILL rejects Jesus today.
Illus. – A young woman went into a bookstore and was looking through the Christmas cards. – Suddenly, she threw a Christmas card to the floor and stomped angrily out of the store, saying, “Imagine bringing religion into Christmas!”
Friends, the ACLU will not rest until Christ is taken totally out of Christmas because they have rejected the Christ of Christmas. The battle rages over whether to say, “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas!” God forbid we use a word with the name “Christ” in a respectful way; but it’s perfectly okay to use the word as profanity!
Well, you can criticize these people, but I wonder if YOU are rejecting Christ today.… You may acknowledge that Christ is part of Christmas, but have you accepted Christ into your life personally? I hope that THIS Christmas, Christ will be more than a historical figure to you; and that he is your SAVIOR…which leads to my second point:
II. THE MANGER PERFECTLY PICTURES JESUS’ REDEMPTION
Luke 2:12 – “And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” – Notice in this verse that there were two signs given by the angels to the shepherds:
• The first sign was “you will find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.”
When a baby was born into a common person’s home in that day, the mother would bind him tightly with linen cloth until all but his little face was covered. He looked rather like a miniature Egyptian mummy. Called “swaddling clothes,” this linen cloth was much different from the fine silks used in the homes of the wealthy to cover a newborn babe.
Now the fact that they were to look for a baby in swaddling clothes was not really particularly unusual or unique for all babies of the common folk were wrapped in greyish-white swaddling clothes. The second sign was what must have seemed rather strange to these shepherds, and was a dead give-away they had found the right baby.
• That was that the baby would be “lying in a manger.”
Again, remember that a manger was an animal feeding trough, mostly for sheep in that area of Israel. How appropriate for the Lamb of God to be born where sheep were kept and to be lain in a feeding trough for sheep. Think about that—to be put in a feeding trough for sheep, and then to be found first by people whose occupation was the care of sheep.
John the Baptist called Jesus the “LAMB OF GOD.” – John 1:29 – “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
What is this all about? In the Old Testament, lambs were sacrificed to atone for sins. The New Testament teaches that these animal sacrifices did not actually atone for sin, but they pointed to the one who would atone for sin—Jesus Christ. How did He atone for sin?—Just as a lamb was slain in the Old Testament and the sins of the sacrificer were symbolically transferred from the sinner to the innocent lamb, so innocent Jesus was slain on the cross to pay for your sins. In reality, it was not far from the manger to the Cross.
We must not forget the cross at this time of the year! Repeatedly in the New Testament, Christ’s BIRTH is tied to His DEATH.
When the wise men found Jesus, they brought three gifts—
1) One brought GOLD, a gift befitting ROYALTY, for Jesus would someday be the King of the Jews and, the Bible says that someday, “every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”
2) Another brought FRANKINCENSE, a perfume used in WORSHIP. – How fitting— for as VERY GOD, Jesus was worthy of worship and adoration.
3) But the strangest gift of all was the gift of MYRRH. Myrrh was a spice that was USED TO EMBALM THE DEAD.
Isn’t that a rather peculiar gift for a newborn child? But really, this particular Magi was indeed a “wise man,” for his gift was a recognition that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords CAME TO DIE. He was born to die upon Calvary! He was born to be the sacrificial Lamb of God to take away sin and to provide the way to God and give eternal life. It’s not merely through Jesus’s LIFE that we’re saved; it’s through His DEATH!
It’s interesting how Paul’s descriptions of the birth of Christ are tied to the cross. – In Galatians 4:4-5 he says “But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”
Why did Jesus come in “the fullness of time?” To REDEEM us—to buy us from the slave market of sin—that we might receive the “adoption of sons”—in other words, that we could be purge us from sin and become the children of God.
You see, too many people have the wrong picture of Jesus at Christmas: They see him as a HELPLESS LITTLE CHILD lying in a stable, with sheep and oxen and a donkey standing around in wonder and amazement. They think of a fictional little drummer boy, and the “littlest angel.”
These are romanticized pictures that obscure the real message of Christ’s birth. The real picture we ought to see is Jesus as the Lamb of God who would be sacrificed on Calvary’s cross. Jesus came to earth to die as the Lamb of God—for your sins and for mine.
Have you received His gift of forgiveness for all your sins? If not, then come to Christ and trust Him as YOUR Lamb of God.
The manger perfectly pictures Christ’s REJECTION and His REDEMPTION.
III. THIRD, THE MANGER PERFECTLY PICTURES HIS REACHABLENESS.
A feeding trough was one of the most common, everyday, ordinary things you could find in the agricultural society this story is set in. There’s nothing ornate or special about a feeding trough. It didn’t have some kind of unique or romanticized purpose. It was just used for the run-of-the-mill, ordinary task of…well,…feeding sheep! It was very “common”—in the sense the British use the word to refer to people or things that are lowly, not of nobility, of the lower-classes.
And to me, it’s very significant that the FIRST announcement of the birth of Christ was to the most common of people—the humble shepherds. Only later did the wise men, in all their refinement and wealth come with their expensive gifts—probably, most scholars believe, about two years later. It was these simple shepherds who got to witness an incredible display in the sky as the angels made their astonishing announcement of the birth of Christ.
Now you think about that!—Why were these simple, common, everyday work-folk given the unique privilege to witness this incredible event? I think it was to teach us that Jesus is reachable by ordinary people like you and me. The Bible says that ANYBODY can come to Jesus. Jesus said, “…him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6:37b)
Praise God, God meets us where we are, just as we are.
That famous verse, John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Did you hear that?—The verse says that salvation is for “WHOSOEVER!” That means the RICH MAN and POOR WOMAN; the SMART and the NOT SO SMART; the TALENTED and the MEDOCRE; the EDUCATED and the ILLITERATE; the UPRIGHT PEOPLE and THEY WITH A LIFETIME OF WICKED DEEDS; the PHILANTHROPIST and the MURDERER. That means ME and that means YOU, no matter who you are…or what your background,…or what your intellectual, or educational, or economic level is…or what your sins may have been in the past.
The Bible invites you to come to Jesus for salvation. Just as those simple shepherds were invited to come to Jesus, you too are invited.
That invitation is not only found in the Christmas story; it’s throughout the Bible:
• “Ho, EVERY ONE that thirsteth, [said Isaiah] come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat…” (Isaiah 55:1)
• Jesus said, “…If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” (John 7:37) Are you thirsty today?— Are you thirsty for forgiveness of sins? for cleansing? for abundant life? for a new start? for purpose in life? Jesus says, “Come.”
• Jesus says this in Revelation 22:17 – “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Salvation is for “whosoever will.”—and whosoever includes YOU. Will you come to Jesus today?
Every head bowed, and every eye closed.
CONCLUSION
What does the birth of Christ mean to you? Is it just a nice story—like a FAIRY TALE to tell your kids? Or is it TRUTH that tells you something about God, and His plan on earth? Is Jesus to you only a LITTLE BABY IN A MANGER, or is He your SAVIOR—the Lamb of God who died and paid your penalty for your sin on the cross?
Have you, like the people in Jesus’s lifetime, rejected Him?—or have you come to the Lamb of God for forgiveness through faith in Him? If you’re rejecting Him—and make no mistake: IF YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED HIM…YOU HAVE REJECTED HIM. If you have done that, why don’t you change course and come to Jesus and be saved?—Today; right now.
