The Lowly Manger

I’m country born and raised (as if it didn’t show!). I have many fond memories of barns in my childhood… jumping and playing, building hay forts, nice little baby cows and kittens … To this day, the mere smell of hay can make my day. But as nice as those memories are, they are not without some of the more, can we say - ‘earthy’ - elements, like ‘haying’ in the top of a dusty mow in July or shoveling cow poop.

I have been reminded again this Christmas season of how significant it is, the way Jesus came into this world. To the degree that the world has recognized the true story of Christmas, it has done so by adopting a rather slick version of it; one that is much more sentimental – a sanitized version.

The truth is that the manger (Luke 2:6) where God chose to personally and bodily enter our world was not a nice place. While some hay may have provided a little creaturely comfort, it would not have been free of bugs and rotted bits of feed and dung and worms. It would have been both cold and dark. The stable in that humble little Hebrew town would have been more like a cave than a barn.

Much has been made of the fact that there was ‘no room’ in the inn. And some have suggested that we have made the Inn Keeper a villain when it might not have been that way at all. That it may have been mercy on his part that sent them to the best he had left to offer. And that could all be true, but it doesn’t take away from the significance that God CHOSE to be born into this world in a manger of hay.

It is consistent with the nature of the incarnation. God humbled Himself (see Phil 2). If you look up the word ‘lowly’ in the dictionary you will see that it has to do with one’s position in life. It is the opposite of privilege (see again Phil 2).

Furthermore, Jesus’ reputation as an illegitimate child would have secured his ‘lowly’ position in Jewish society with all of the shame and stigma that such a reputation would ‘afford’ Him. We could go on to talk about Nazareth where Jesus grew up which itself had a reputation of its own (Jn 1:46).

The significance of all of this is a most wonderful thing. It means that in His incarnation, God didn’t choose to identify Himself with just the best of us but with the lowliest of us. And what began at His birth remained consistent throughout His life as He socialized with moral outcasts. And even in His death as he hung in shame between two thieves. He was numbered with the transgressors (Isa 53:12). Christ identified Himself with the most basic level of humanity. He relates to us in the most humblest conditions and realities that we might find ourselves in.

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.”
Isa 53:3

Just how incredible is this really!!!?

The SON of GOD became the Son of Man so that you and I could become the children of God.