Why a Manger?
Why the Son of God was born in a stable
By
Bodie and Brock Thoene. © 1996
Theme: A fresh look at the Christmas story
Title: Why a Manger?
Topic: The Significance of the Incarnation
Texts: Luke 2:1-20, Genesis 3, Genesis 18 and 22:1-19, John 1:26-37
Thesis: Even though Christmas is perhaps the most familiar of Christian Holy Days, we have a sadly inadequate view of its eternal significance.
INTRODUCTION:
For many people, Christians and non-Christians alike, the Christmas season is an important way of counting the years. We remember when our children were small. What they did and said. Christmas even carries us back to our own childhoods’ all the sights of lights and trees. The sounds of carols and laughter the aromas of turkeys roasting and pies baking.
Is it any wonder that we love Christmas?
Nor is there any more evocative symbol of Christmas than a manger scene.
We look at the adoration on the faces of Mary and Joseph the worship imprinted on the shepherds and the wise men. The wonder that images of angels provoke in us. And we see the Nativity as a sweetly pastoral moment’s peaceful and serene forever frozen in time.
And that view is so far from conveying what Christmas is all about!
In reality Jesus was born into a world dominated by the Roman ‘Empire and in a country under the close personal supervision of King Herod. Herod was in the waning years of a ruthless rule. He found conspiracies around every corner and plots in every pantry. He even had two of his own sons executed for conspiring against him.
Would you want to be the one to tell this so-called King of the Jews that the true King of the Jews had just been born?
It was far from being a serene, pastoral world.
Nor is it correct to see the Nativity moment as frozen in time. Because Almighty God had seen His plan from eons past. In fact, the stable the manger. Bethlehem is only the culminating instant in a plan already unfolding in human history for 4000 years or more before the Star of Bethlehem appeared.
So why was the Son of God born in a manger? If Jesus is, as we believe, the Only Begotten Son of God’.. Why was He born in such humble circumstances? Why not in a palace? Why did the angels speak to shepherds and not to the powerful rulers in Jerusalem and Rome?
HOW IT ALL BEGAN:
To comprehend how it is that Jesus Christ, the Savior, was born in a stable first requires that we understand why there was the need for a Savior at all.
We see, in very Beginning, in Genesis, that there was a man and a woman in love. And God said to them: “ You can have it all. You can have it all except this one tree. Don’t eat the fruit of it or you will die. (Gen. 2:16-17)
Then the woman met someone who came along Satan who said, “You won’t die. God knows your eyes will be opened when you eat it. You will become just like God, knowing everything, both good and evil.” (Gen. 3:4)
This is actually where the Christmas story begins: Eve reached up and took a bite of the fruit, and then gave some to her husband and he ate as well.
And Adam and Eve who had enjoyed a perfect, personal relationship with God can you imagine it? Suddenly ran to hide themselves from their loving Father.
The Lord God the pre-Incarnate Jesus walked among them and called out: “ Where are you?”
And Adam replied, “I heard you, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.” And guilty and full of remorse and full of anxiety, all things Adam and Eve had never ever experienced before. (Gen. 3:8-10)
But instead of making them pay a price that day, because God had said, “On the day you eat thereof you will surely die, “God took an animal perhaps a lamb and killed it, and with its fleece made clothing for Adam and Eve. (Gen. 3:21)
Now don’t miss this--- Adam and Eve though they had sinned did not immediately die. But their sin DID cause a death that of the lamb. The first lamb of sacrifice. Right there, right in the Garden, that soon.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
Now we’ll skip forward in time. Even as we do so, remember that in looking at your Bible every word every number somehow relates to Jesus the Messiah.
So in reading thru Genesis we come to man named Abraham. And he and his wife had no children. He had all the sheep he wanted, all the flocks and herds, all the wealth. And he was obeying God; he was walking with God.
In fact, Abraham was so approved by God that God said: “I will make you father of a multitude of nations. I will always be your God and the God of your descendents after you.” (Gen. 17:1-6)
This promise made to Abraham, God ratified by a blood covenant. The Hebrew people understood “blood covenant”
Especially important vows were performed by slaughtering animals, splitting their bodies to form a path and then the parties to the contract passed between the dismembered sacrifices. In this way the parties to the vow pledged THEIR OWN LIVES to the keeping of the vow.
Only in the case of God’s blood covenant with Abraham, He passed through the path of commitment BY HIMSELF ALONE. (Gen. 15:9-12)
Not much later God came to Abraham and again said, “I am going to give you a son.” (Gen. 18:1-15)
Do you know what Sarah, Abraham’s wife, did? She fell down laughing! Because she was 90 and Abraham was 100. “Are you kidding? What are you saying, God?”
But God said, “You and Sarah really are going to have a son. And not only are you going to have a son but through him, through his line, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.”
Remember, Sarah’s 90. Think of that, all you Nanas and Mee-Maws and Grannies.
But you know what? Nothing is too hard for God. And Sarah had a son!
More time passed.
Isaac, Abraham and Sarah’s son, was now a young man.
God came back to Abraham and said, “If you trust me, you’ll take your son up on Mount Moriah and offer him to me as a sacrifice.” (Gen. 22:1-19
Now picture this: Can you see Abraham sitting down with Sarah? He comes home and says to her, “Honey, God came to me today and said this is what he wants us to do with our beloved dearly beloved only son.”
You realize that nowhere in scripture is it recorded that Abraham EVER told Sarah what he was about to do? Or told anyone else?
What do you think Sarah would have done if he had? “What would she have SAID?
Instead, Abraham, Isaac and some servants headed up toward what is now Jerusalem to Mount Moriah. And it says after a three day journey they could see it. Now three days from their starting point would have brought them near to Bethlehem making their last stop near what is now Bethlehem.
Isaac looked at his father and asked: “Where’s the lamb for the sacrifice?”
Now Abraham put the wood for the sacrifice on the shoulders of his son. The boy’s father laid the wood across the shoulders of his only, much loved son and Isaac carried it himself. Abraham, the father, carried the fire and the knife.
They left the servants and the donkey back at Bethlehem and headed up the other six miles or so to Mount Moriah.
And Isaac said, “Here’s the fire. Here’s the knife. Where’s the lamb?”
And Abraham replied this is the word order in the Hebrew” God he will provide Himself the lamb for sacrifice.”
And Abraham went straight ahead and bound up Isaac, laid him on the altar, raised the knife. And we are told in this incredible story that the voice of the Lord said, “Don’t lay a hand on the boy! Because you have believed me enough to offer your only son, you will be blessed beyond what you can imagine.“
So the ropes are cut loose. Abraham and Isaac hear something in the thorn bushes. It was a ram, and his horns were caught in the thicket. And the ram was taken and sacrificed instead of Isaac. Now that is how what Abraham predicted played out: “God Himself will provide the sacrifice.”
Again, don’t lose sight of this fact: Isaac’s life was spared, but not without cost. The ram still died to complete the sacrifice!
That summarizes the belief of those of Jewish heritage: that all those lambs, and goats, and turtle doves tens and hundreds of thousands of sacrifices offered to the God of Israel like the fleece in the Garden of Eden covered the sins of those who disobeyed God.
JUMP FORWARD AGAIN IN TIME
There are countless other instances of lambs of sacrifice. We could talk about the Passover lambs whose blood spared the lives of the first born of the Hebrews in Egypt when the first born of the Egyptians all died
And all the sacrifices around Mount Sinai and all the sacrifices before the Tabernacle and still later, all the sacrifices before the Temple of Yahweh on the Temple Mount on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem.
Now consider this: At the time of Solomon’s Temple Bethlehem was the location of Migdal Eder the Tower of the Flock. It was the center of the raising of the sacrificial lambs. IN fact, all the perfect, first born male lambs, born to the Temple flocks around Bethlehem were KORBAN; that is, they were set apart from birth to ‘sacrificed in the Temple.
Consider such a lamb, less than a year in age, perfectly formed and completely innocent, taken up to Jerusalem retracing the steps of Abraham and Isaac taken to the great Temple to be sacrificed for sin.
Now to get more specific: Recollect what the cost of forgiveness is: I lay my hands on that pure, innocent lamb of Bethlehem and I confess my sins my fault my guilt my remorse my separation from God and He forgives me and the lamb STILL DIES IN MY PLACE.
HOW DO WE GET TO CHRISTMAS?
Remember Eve, who disobeyed God?
Remember Sarah, who laughed, who mocked God?
Now consider a young woman of Nazareth a woman named Mary who said in response to the astonishing message that she, a virgin, would bear God’s only son she replied, “ Let it happen to me exactly as you have said.” (Luke 1:26-38)’
Perfect obedience, perfect faith. A female, in the spirit of Abraham, who says, “Whatever you want, Lord. I’m your servant.” The price paid for our sin! The sorrow and pain that would come into that woman’s life to see her son God’s son taken up the road to be sacrificed for sin all sin yours and mine.
The perfect lamb the first born male, born in Bethlehem set apart from birth to be The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. (John 1:29-37)
Listen to this: “While they were there the time came for the baby to be born. And she gave birth to her first born, a son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and placed him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:6-7)
God Himself looked at the pastures and fields of Bethlehem and remembering all the clues all the hints all the foreshadowing all the prophecy He brought it all to fulfillment that night.
The Son of God was not born in a palace not even in a cozy birthing room with a cheery fire but in a stable; a lambing cave. Why? Because where else would the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world have to be born?
And what is the confirmation that this conclusion is correct? To whom was the miraculous birth first announced? To the shepherds, keeping watch over their flocks by night the shepherds of the Temple flocks’ the keepers of the lambs of sacrifice who saw, not a newborn lamb lying on the straw but a human and divine baby, lying in the manger. (Luke 2:8-20)
And scripture says that they spread the story everywhere! No doubt they carried the news up to Jerusalem with the next flock of lambs. All too soon the eyes of evil of King Herod turned toward Bethlehem as Herod sought to protect his throne by massacring the male babies of Bethlehem.
Now Jesus escaped because Joseph was warned in a dream and cried the baby and Mary away to safety in Egypt.
But don’t lose sight of this – it’s never without cost! The babies of the shepherds!
Thirty-Three Years Later
So Jesus escaped being murdered by Herod until thirty-three years later when He walked that same road – the same road of Abraham with Isaac – the same road as thousands of lambs of sacrifice…
To the Cross!
Why a Manger?
It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
“GOD, HE WILL PROVIDE HIMSELF, THE LAMB OF SACRIFICE”
“BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD WHO TAKES AWAY THE SINS OF THE WORLD”
What a price? What it cost God for the blood of His only beloved Son to cover our sins… to pay for our redemption!
What does such a sacrifice require of each of us?
Come to the manger.
Claim the gift of God’s Son.
Claim that lamb; that perfect sacrifice; as your own.
Lay your hands on him and say, “I accept this great gift of your love and salvation, this covenant by which; from the beginning of time, before the foundation of the world, You knew us and chose us to be part of your flock.”
No matter who you are…. No matter what you have done… no matter what your life is… no matter what your doubts are… if you study His book you will see His plan is perfect and always has been.
For thousands of years before the manger… before the shepherds… before the wise men… it was pictured for you so there would be no mistake.
When Jesus said, “Moses and the prophets wrote about me and before they were I AM.”
From the mother who said, as Abraham did, “Here is my son.” “ Let it be to me, even as You have said.”
The final sacrifice was born.
Christmas… In the circuit of Migdal Eder…
Why a Manger? The Son of God was born in stable and laid in a manger as the perfect lamb of sacrifice… for you.
