December 14, 2005 The Third Sign of Christmas to Come: Lying in a Manger
Luke 2:12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.
People don’t normally do their Christmas shopping at Burger King. They go there to eat a Whopper and some fries and usually don’t expect much more. You don’t expect to find true love at Burger King or vacuum cleaners for sale. If I told you as much, you would think I was nuts.
How much more strange is this third sign of Christmas to come? To find the Messiah of the world - not only as a baby - wrapped in common cloths - but also lying in a manger? Humans don’t normally go rummaging through mangers. A manger was a man made trough either carved into some stone or made out of wood - in which they placed hay for animals to eat out of. The cattle and the donkeys would go there looking for hay - because that’s what mangers were made for. They weren’t made for babies - much less future kings. The angel had just told the shepherds that this baby was the Savior, Christ the Lord. Since David was a shepherd and was found out among the animals - this might make some sense. Yet David was also a king - so you would expect more of his offspring. Yet today we’ll see how ~
The Manger is the Perfect Place for the Messiah to Be Found
I. It is a filthy place
2 Samuel chapter 7 shows King David living comfortably in his palace, while the ark of God remained in a tent. He didn’t think that was right, because God promised to be present within the ark. He was living in a palace while God was “living” in a tent. He wanted to build a temple for the ark. That night, God replied to Nathan the prophet,
“Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’. . . I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. . . . When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
The answer of God was, “I don’t need a house to live in - but YOU do. I will send an offspring through you who will have an ETERNAL kingdom.” From a first read, it would appear that this kingdom of David and his reign would go on forever. Yet history proved different. As David’s seemingly last successor - Zedekiah - had his children put to death in front of him before his eyes were plucked out and he was taken into captivity (Jeremiah 39:5), it seemed painfully obvious that David’s physical kingdom would not last forever. The future Messiah would not be able to be born in a palace, because the kingdom of David did not have a palace to be born in. The natural conclusion, then, would be that either no Messiah was coming, or that Messiah would have to be born in a house of some sort - to at least have a nice roof over his head with a little children’s mattress. Something even more humbling happened. The Messiah was born in a cattle stall. That which was built to hold hay - filled with bugs, dirt, and cow slobber - was used to hold salvation. There was no where else to put Him - so a manger had to do.
The first place that Jesus had to lay his head - in the cattle stall - was a sign of things to come. John 1:10-11 said, “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” His fellow Jews didn’t want anything to do with Jesus. When he spoke in the synogogues or cleansed the temple, the religious leaders couldn’t get rid of Him quickly enough. Throughout His whole life Jesus would experience people who couldn’t make room for Him and wouldn’t make room for Him. You might remember the story of Jesus calling men to follow Him.
Luke 9:57-62 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” He said to another man, “Follow me.” But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
Many people wanted to follow Jesus, but they didn’t want to make room in their busy schedules to put Jesus in there. Jesus’ own ministry led Him to often be without a place to lay His head - much like He began His life - without a bed to be laid in. Instead, He would have to lay under the stars without a place to hang his hat.
As is seen in his birth, we are being trained by the Holy Spirit not to look for the Messiah in even regular places - but the dirtiest places this earth has to offer. This was offensive to those who saw Jesus eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners. But what did Jesus say? Luke 15:4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” How could Jesus expect to save the lost sheep if He didn’t go and eat with them? It is the duty of the shepherd to go out in the dangerous grounds to find the sheep. He would have to eat with the “dirty” people in order to make them clean. This naturally leads us to the dirtiest place in the world - even dirtier than the cattle stall. At the end of Jesus’ life He was assigned a place with the criminals - being hammered to a cross and treated as the scum of society and the worst of lawbreakers. Even His own Father treated Him with scorn, delegating to Him the position of scapegoat for the sins of the entire world. Jesus - as our Messiah - found Himself laying in much worse than hay - He found Himself laying on a cross with the sins of the world on His back.
It may not seem appropriate for a Messiah or a Christ or a Promised One to be laying in such filthy places. Yet in the eyes of prophecy this is the perfect place for the Messiah to be. Isaiah 53:8-9 says, “By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. 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.” The key term here is “for the transgression of my people.” In order to die for the world, the Messiah had to lay in the filthiest places. As a result of Adam and Eve’s sin we found ourselves in the midst of a rotting world on the way to hell. Therefore, we need to look for Jesus in the midst of sin to save us from sin. This is the perfect place for Jesus to be - He HAD to become dirty in order to make us clean. If you don’t look for Jesus in a manger, then you won’t see Him on a cross either. We need to accustom ourselves through the eyes of faith to see Jesus in manger like places. This is where we need to look for him.
II. It is an accessible place
The shepherds, who were given these three signs to look for the Savior, were “living out” in the fields nearby. That word for “living” comes from two words, agra - meaning field, and auleo - which in the verb sense means to play on the flute or in the noun sense means the uncovered part of a house - the outer courtyard. That’s where the shepherds spent there time, often actually playing a musical instrument to pass the time out in the open fields. According to the commentaries I have read, these shepherds were often times actually despised by their fellow Jews because their calling as shepherds left them out in the fields instead of going through the ceremonial rights and obeying the Sabbaths and whatnot. The other explanation for these shepherds was that they were raising a special flock specifically set aside for the sacrifices at the temple. This “background” of the shepherds could put them as the outcast of the religious society or as contributors to the sacrifices without being visibly involved as much. There is no reason to spin it either way. The simple fact is that they were not high and mighty. They were not well known. They were your simple run of the mill blue collar workers - guys who did their job night after night and didn’t get any recognition for it. Yet we would have to assume that spiritually they were believers looking forward to the Savior from the simple fact that the angels didn’t need to explain what “Messiah” they were talking about.
When we consider this limited background and calling of the shepherds, the location of the Christ - this third sign - takes on special significance. They were told to find Him lying in a manger. A manger was not far from where the sheep were to graze. A manger was not in the city, but on the outskirts of the city - much like farms line the outskirts of most of our cities. The shepherds - by this simple location - would have been ENCOURAGED to go and see this thing that has happened. If you notice, the angels never TOLD them to specifically go and find the child, they simply told them where he could be found. It didn’t take long for the shepherds to assume this was an invitation to go and see him. Even though they were dirty from carrying the sheep, probably hadn’t showered in weeks, and would have felt embarrassed to walk into a city or not special enough to walk into a king’s castle, they didn’t hesitate to go and see this child. The location helped them with this. The manger was something they were familiar with. They had seen plenty of them in their lifetimes. It was close by. They didn’t need to wear special clothing. They didn’t need to pass any temple guards. All they had to do was to look around the outskirts of Bethlehem to find what the angel had told them about. God didn’t care what they were wearing. He wanted them to go and see the Christ child as they were - to enjoy this vision. So they went.
As we are given this third sign of Christmas to come, the message is the same to us. Jesus didn’t just come for the upper crust of society. He didn’t just want the good looking or the royalty or the well to do. God wanted His Son to be accessible to all walks of society. The ironic thing is that even though Jesus was accessible to the rich and the religious as well, how many of them would have felt compelled to go to a manger in the middle of the night - a stinking cow yard to see the Christ? The shepherds were most likely excited and encouraged by this location. The bare essence of our religion - is supposed to be really simple. God became man to live and die for us. It’s the simple message that God wants all people to come to. We aren’t doing God a favor when we make this message complicated - when we make our liturgies hard to follow - or when we give the impression that only the wise or the intelligent or the best dressed can come here. God came in the manger - and announced it first to the blue collar normal guys out in the field. Doesn’t that tell us that God wants all to be saved? The message of the manger is that God wants to make Himself accessible. He didn’t want to scare us away or think that we have to meet a certain standard to be able to approach Him. Instead, He comes to where we are and wants us to see Him - sins and all - so He can give us forgiveness and hope and happiness and faith.
The shepherds didn’t know exactly which manger Jesus would be found in. God’s Word doesn’t say whether they found Him at the first or the second or the fifth manger they visited. I’m sure it wasn’t too hard, as Bethlehem wasn’t too big of a town. Even if they hadn’t gone, they would have still had the message of the Savior from the angels. The signs and the finding of the Baby simply helped to confirm God’s Word and promise as spoken to them through the angels. It helped to confirm in their hearts that what they had been promised was true.
Isn’t that why we’re here this evening and celebrating this special Advent service? Isn’t that why we receive the Lord’s Supper and keep a baptismal font in the middle of our worship area? The angels have spoken to us through His Word. We’ve heard the same message the shepherds heard - that a Savior has been born to us. He is Christ the Lord. But as we sing these Christmas songs again, we experience the message as heard through fellow Christians. As we taste the Lord’s Supper, we experience God’s promise of forgiveness as we receive Jesus’ body and blood. As we see another infant be baptized, we once again see God’s promise come true as His Holy Spirit brings faith and salvation to another child born into a sinful world. These experiences of reliving Advent and looking at the signs again help to confirm in our minds the promises of God’s Word given so long ago. As our eyes of faith go back to these signs - we are strengthened in our faith and reminded that God’s Word is true.
If the shepherds hadn’t gone to the manger, they would have missed a wonderful opportunity to actually see with their physical eyes and maybe even hold with their physical arms the future of the world. They made the effort. They went. They were blessed. God blesses us also as we go where He tells us to go to reaffirm His promises - when we go to His Word and His sacrament every day and every week and every year. These physical things are not far for us. They are only a few minutes drive. They are not out in the cold. They are in a heated building. They are on our desks, in our bookshelves, and here - at church. This is where God has told us to find them - in simple places and easy to access places - perfect places - just like the manger. Simply come.
Signs are given along roadways to make sure you don’t miss a turn. Signs are important. If you’re driving along and see a 15 mile per hour curve ahead, it could easily save your life. Road closed, dead end, and other signs tell you that you can’t go any further. Baby, wrapped in cloths, lying in a manger - these three signs of Christmas to come would seem like small and insignificant signs in the eyes of the world. Most of them drive on by without stopping to see what is in that cattle stall of Bethlehem. But to us, these signs are some of the most important signs in the world. They show us the humility of God, the accessibility of God, and the willingness of God to become all and do all for our salvation. They show us a God who would later on lay Himself on a cross. They prepare us for a God who would use unlikely items to save His people. They prepare us not only for Christmas, but salvation as well. Take a good look at these signs this Christmas and remember their significance. Amen.
