THE MYSTERY OF THE MANGER
A SOLUTION FOR THE STABLE
LUKE 2: 1-7
Seven year old Johnny yelled “Daddy, guess what’s missing?” The front lawn rang with excitement as the family put the life-size manger scene in place.
“What?” his father asked while he finished fastening Joseph to a stake for support.
“It’s baby Jesus,” Johnny replied, twisting his face into a frown. “Daddy, if we can’t find Jesus, there’s no need for us to put up the manger scene at all.”
Seven year old Johnny is right. If we cannot include Jesus in our Christmas, then there is no reason to celebrate Christmas at all.
What does Christmas mean to you? What does this Christmas mean to you? Is it a season to fill your life with more worldly things? A time to be filled with all the desirables this life offers? What did Christmas mean to Him who brought the celebration about? Christmas initially meant "no vacancy" to Jesus and His family.
We can learn a lot by listening to children. A little girl was helping her mother unpack the NATIVITY SET and set it up. As she unpacked each of the pieces she said, “Here’s Mary and Joseph.” When she got the figurine of Jesus in the manger she said, “And here’s the baby Jesus in His car seat.” In today’s antiseptic world we may not clearly understand what a stable and manger were.
One of the most puzzling facts of Christmas is that God, when He came to earth and took upon Himself human form, was born in a stable. Why? As Prince of Peace He could have chosen a palace, but He didn’t. Let us look into the mystery of the manger and find a solution for the stable.
Stables and mangers are filthy places. They are places for farm animals, not humans and especially not babes. Mary and Joseph might have cleaned out the remaining messes deposited by the previous occupants of the barn, but still the foul odor and earthiness would have clung to the place.
I. MY HEART
Yet, one time I wondered something very similar concerning Jesus and me. When Christ Jesus was knocking at the door of my heart, I wondered why would God desire to come live in me? The heart of an unsaved person, the prophet Jeremiah says, "is deceitful above all things" (17:9). At first that word of truth seems unpalatable. It is not too tasty a morsel but we have to digest it. Yes, it is the same picture Jesus painted of the unsaved person’s heart.
Jesus says in Matthew 15:16-20, “Jesus said, “Are you still lacking in understanding also? (17) “Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated? (18) “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. (19) “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. (20) “These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.” (NAS)
No matter how we try to clothe or perfume the fact or even clean up our act, it can not be disguised. The human heart still has a foul odor clinging to it.
We wouldn’t invite our friends to dine with us in a stable. We would invite them into our homes. And so it is with our hearts, in that we don’t open them readily to our fellow man. We rather have them see our nice, clean living room, our clothed and perfumed exteriors, than inspect our smelly stables.
God knows what we are like--far better than we even know ourselves. He sees us in the light of His holiness, yet He still loves us (Rom. 5:8). And yes, He is willing to be invited into our dark heart where we live.
Jesus Christ, the exalted Lord of Heaven and Earth, humbled Himself and was born in a filthy stable. God knew what kind of world into which He was coming. It was a world ruled by men. A world full of cruelty, greed, strife, warring, selfishness; in short, a world of sin. If He had wanted the purest, the best place, He would have stayed in heaven. But the purity of God in a sin sickened world is well represented by a pure, innocent baby in a stable.
II. LAMB OF GOD
But there is another reason Christ was born in a stable. John the Baptist calls Jesus the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29). From the beginning of man, God has made it plain that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin, no forgiveness of evil (Heb. 9:22). When Adam and Eve sinned the first sin God took one lamb and slew it. When God formed the nation of Israel, each year on Yom Kippur one pure innocent lamb was taken and slain for the sins of His people. Then blood redemption took its fullest form when God took one lamb, His Son, and slew Him for the sin of the world. Christ was the Lamb that was going to be sacrificed on the altar of the cross for us, taking our place as a substitute and receive our punishment, that forgiveness might be justly and freely offered.
Is there a more appropriate place for a lamb to be born than a stable--a barn? It was not just a matter of chance that Mary and Joseph could not find room in the inn when they arrived in Bethlehem. Their coming to the stable and thus to a manger was according to God’s foreknowledge and definite plan. God has a plan for your life also, if you will accept it, just as Jesus did for His own life.
Is there room in your life for Jesus Christ, for God’s plan for your salvation? Which brings us to our third point;
III. GOD’S PLAN
Jesus came into the world in innocence and glory. It was a world not worthy of Him; a world that even resented His wondrous ministry. And He calls us to work in this world and it will involve some stable work, some working with people and things that we are prone to think beneath us or contrary to us. Yet these persons are not too low or humble for Christ to enter into, if they would invite Him in. Yet often we, like our friends and neighbors and forefathers, seem to choose the easier more respectable tasks approved by the world instead of the humble work of soul winning; stable work. Stable work is too difficult for us and we like the people of the inn, the people of the fallen world, have no vacancy for stable workers, for the dirty work of dealing with our fallen nature so that the Christ might be bore into human hearts.
When God created man, He allowed man the freedom to sin, to rebel against God and to follow himself, his own plan and desire instead of God’s plan. As you know, the first man, Adam, followed his own course, did what he and satan wanted and did not obey God the Creator. Each and every human since then has initially followed the exact same pattern with their life.
Yet God exhibited His love for us by being born on earth in human flesh. Man in the flesh brought sin into the world. Now the God/Man would come in the flesh to bring perfection and just forgiveness into the world. Jesus Christ came to remove the barrier of sin by paying the debt of sin, by receiving the punishment due us for our evil thoughts, actions, and our selfish non-thoughts and non-actions.
[Consider for a moment: Have you ever placed your finger inside the hand of a little baby and felt its grip? If a baby tugs at your finger, it also tugs at your heart.
Christmas is the powerful grip of a tiny hand reaching from a bed of straw. It is love, tugging our hearts back to God. As the Bible says, ‘God, invisible in His own nature, became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, He chose to come within our grasp.’
And this is the intimately personal nature of Christmas: God gave us His son for our sake. John’s Gospel says, ‘For God so loved the world, that He gave His only son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16).
He loved the world so much that he gave us a life-giving gift of such a personal nature that we couldn’t begin to dream such a story or such a gift into being.]
IV. STORY NOT ENDED
Yes, it is a heart breaking story. That there was no room for the family of Christ in the comfortable inn and that He had to be born in a filthy stable. But it is not the end of the story. He who was perfect should never have died. He did die, but he also rose from the dead. The eternal debt for sin has now been paid by the punishment of the cross. By the shedding of His blood He paid the price for man’s ransom and redemption, then He rose again and returned to heaven. He now offers the free gift of salvation to all who would follow Him.
CONCLUSION
You may think your life too unChrist-like to become like Christ, to receive Him into your life, to invite Him into your heart. You may think you are not good enough, that there is too much wrong. Remember, Christ Jesus, God born into human flesh, was not too proud to be born into a dirty stable. He is not too proud to be born into your dirty heart by the Holy Spirit (Jn 3:16). The only people Christ cannot save are those who think themselves too good to need saving. Those that think their present lives are good enough. They are telling Jesus that their life is full and comfortable, that there is no room for You to come in and change things.
Rev. 3:20 says Jesus is knocking at your door, the door of your life, the door of your heart, desiring to come in. Have you been telling Him “no vacancy?” Do you think yourself too good to have the Prince of Peace reign there? Still today Jesus by the Holy Spirit wants to live and abide with men, but we tell Him, “no vacancy.”
Will you open your heart to Him today, right now? Some day He will be the Inn Keeper--the Inn Keeper of Heaven. Will you hear no room for you? Will God say “you had no place for Me in your heart and life on earth, and thus I have not built a place for you in heaven.”
What better time than Christmas to receive God’s indescribable gift, His own Son Jesus Christ. You come as the Spirit draws you Himself.
[He was laid in a manger to mark His identification with human suffering and wretchedness. The One born was "The Son of Man." He had left the heights of Heaven’s glory and had descended to our level, and here we behold Him entering the human condition at its lowest point. Thus did the Man of Sorrows identify Himself with human suffering.]
