GOD AS A HELPLESS BABY
Lk. 2:10-12
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: Having to Sleep in the Barn
1. Three college students -- one from India, one a Jew from Israel and the third a Hippie -- were having trouble finding a room for the night. After much searching, they finally found an Inn with only two beds left. The innkeeper said the third one of them had to sleep in the barn.
2. They drew straws for the two beds, and the Indian was sent off to the barn for the night. But within five minutes of the Jew and the Hippie turning off the lights and going to bed, there was a KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK on the door. They opened the door and there was the Indian.
3. "I can’t sleep in the barn," said the Indian, "I’m Hindu and there’s a cow in the barn. Cows are sacred to us so I can’t sleep under the same roof as one." The Jew volunteered to go to sleep in the barn.
4. But within five minutes of the Hippie and the Indian turning off the lights and going to bed, there was a KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK on the door. They opened the door and there was the Jew.
5. "I can't sleep in the barn either," said the Jew, "there's a pig in the barn, and if I sleep in hay that a pig has touched, I may get some in my mouth and that wouldn't be kosher." So the Hippie ventured out to go to sleep in the barn.
6. But within five minutes of the Indian and the Jew turning off the lights and going to bed, there was a KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK on the door. They opened the door and there was the cow and the pig. (Obviously they couldn’t bear to sleep with the Hippie!)
B. TEXT
10 Then the angel said to them [the Shepherds], “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be the SIGN to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” Luke 2:10-12
C. THESIS
1. In the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, we tend to forget the cause of Christmas. We hear but we don’t hear. The Christmas story tells the most amazing story: that God came down to earth in the form of a tiny, helpless baby.
2. Think how utterly unprepared the shepherds were to hear those words. A Savior has been born! The Messiah has come! The Lord from heaven is here! And He’s right here in Bethlehem, no less!
3. But where in Bethlehem? How will the shepherds find the Him? The angel speaks of a “SIGN.” I would expect the angel would give an other-worldly sign: “The moon will turn to blood and the stars will spell out his name, JESUS!” or something like that. But, no, the “sign” from God is this: “You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”
4. In verse 12 the angel tells the Shepherds how to identify the Christ-child. The SIGN actually has 3 parts to it: 1). A Baby, 2). Swaddling clothes, 3). Lying in a Manger. So let’s look at each of these three parts for significance.
I. “YOU WILL FIND A BABY”
A. CONNECTING WITH US
1. The Jews were expecting the Messiah to come. After all, there are many prophecies in the O.T about the Messiah coming, but most of them picture Him coming to overthrow the pagan empires and set up God’s kingdom for His people the Jews.
2. That the Messiah would come as a baby is a startling idea, so revolutionary that it could only have originated from God. It has magnificent appeal. Almost nobody has seen God nor has any real idea what He’s like.
3. But everyone has seen babies and almost everyone likes them. If God wanted to be loved, as well as feared, He moved correctly. And if God wanted to be intimately a part of the human race, He moved correctly. GOD in the power of man is a shocking idea!
B. HIS HUMANITY
1. This Baby was not half-God or half-man, but fully God and fully man. He didn’t cease to be God when He was born. The Lord Jesus Christ was the God-man -- two natures joining together in his one Person.
2. God entered human history in order to provide for our salvation. Everything else flows from this truth. If He had not been born, he could not have died for our sins. There was no other way. Only as MAN could Jesus represent the human race, and only as GOD could He provide infinite atonement. He walked in our shoes. He wore our skin. He walked on our trails.
3. The Greek word for baby means “an infant” or a “newborn child,” possibly only hours old! Wow! The Eternal - only hours old!
II. “WRAPPED IN CLOTHS”
A. THE SIGN, PART TWO
1. Luke 2:12 tells us the 2nd part of the sign identifying the baby as the Messiah: He would be wrapped in strips of cloth – Greek, “sparganoo.”
2. Why “swaddling clothes?” After all, Jesus was almost certainly not the only baby in Bethlehem that night. We know that 2 years later Herod had all the baby boys under the age of two put to death. This confirms that there must have been other infants and toddlers in Bethlehem that night.
B. DESCRIPTION OF SWADDLING CLOTHS
1. In that day newborn babies were wrapped in strips of cloth, similar to a mummy, to protect them from the harsh elements and provided a crude kind of protection.
2. They “bound up” baby Jesus. From the moment He was born, He was bound -- to His purpose as our Redeemer. He was born to die. That was His destiny & He was “bound” to it from birth!
III. 3RD SIGN ASPECT: “LAYING IN A MANGER”
A. IT SPEAKS OF POVERTY
1. “Manger” refers to an animal feeding trough. This screams of the extreme poverty of His family and the contempt and indifference of mankind (for not providing better for the King of Kings!)
2. In the words of Francis of Assissi, “For our sakes he was born a stranger in an open stable; he lived without a place of His own wherein to lay his head, subsisting by the charity of good people; and he died naked on a cross in the close embrace of holy poverty.”
3. This Baby, unrecognized by the world, rested in a feeding-trough as God’s Savior. Mangers were lonely, dirty, smelly places made for animals.
B. IT SPEAKS OF HUMILITY
1. Philippians 2:7 says that He “made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”
2. Nothing about baby Jesus appeared supernatural. There were no halos, no angels visible, and no choirs singing. If you had been there, and had no other information, you would’ve concluded that this was just another baby born to a poor young couple down on their luck.
3. If you are looking for Jesus, don’t start looking in the sanitary hospital nursery. Go outside to a barn and find the oldest part of it, where the boards need repair and the ground is covered with dirt and the air smells of manure. When you hear the baby’s cry, you’ll know you’ve found the Lord.
C. A REBUKE TO RELIGIOUS POMP
1. No wonder the world missed him then and still misses him today. It’s only by the eye of faith that the majesty of Christ is seen.
2. God’s surprising sign is a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and resting in a feeding trough in a cave behind a village inn. It’s not a very likely place to begin a movement that will change the world.
3. What a rebuke to those who love pomp and outward glory. Jesus could’ve been born in a palace, but He chose a barn. What is the message? GOD LOVES US so much He was willing to lay in rotting cow-spit to save us and to be so poor He died owning nothing in this world!
4. God help all the churches to take their eyes off wealth and status – and put them on the Cross of Jesus, which He bore from the very hour of His birth!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: Finding Baby Jesus
1. Rodney and Marcia were at church when they were called – “Your house is on fire!” They drove, white-knuckled, toward their home. It was December 15, only 10 days before Christmas. Just that morning, Marcia had been checking off her Christmas to-do list. She’d asked herself: “Where’s Christmas in all this? Where’s that feeling of joy and peace?”
2. They were not prepared for what they found: their house was blackened, smoking, surrounded by fire trucks & hoses, the whole interior was soaked and a section of the roof gone.
3. Although their homeowner’s insurance put them up in a hotel until their house was restored, how could they celebrate Christmas without a home? The next day they looked through the ruins, and to their amazement, their porcelain Nativity set was almost untouched. They gathered it to take to the hotel. The only problem was – baby Jesus was missing!
4. Then one day, looking around the debris, their 13-year-old son Brian came running toward Marcia. Cradled in his gritty hands was the missing figurine from the Nativity set. “Look what I found, Mom. Baby Jesus!” Christmas was now complete! [Margot Hovley]
B. THE CALL
1. Christmas carol, In The Bleak Midwinter: "What can I give Him, Poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb, If I were a wise man I would do my part, Yet what I can I give Him, I Give my heart."
2. Behind Christmas stands a God of great surprises. Let’s give God the greatest gift we can – our own hearts & lives!
3. PRAYER
[Some thoughts from Harry Reasoner, “The Touch of God at Christmas;” Jerry Irwin, “A Sign! The Babe in a Manger.”]
