Christmas Day 2011 Cradle that Rocked

Luke 2: 6-7 “While Joseph and Mary were there, the time came for the child to be born. 7 She gave birth to her first baby. It was a boy. She wrapped him in large strips of cloth. Then she placed him in a manger. There was no room for them in the inn.”

This account of Jesus’ birth by Doctor Luke is filled with meaning and truth for us today.

First, it is no accident that Mary and Joseph encountered a “No-Vacancy” sign hanging in front of the hotel they sought refuge in.

Mary was about to have a baby and there was “no room for them in the inn,” says Luke.

I don’t think this was a mistake or just happenstance.

It pictures a truth for us.

As it was then, so it is now.

So many people in our busy world simply have “no room” for Jesus in the Inn of their hearts.

“No vacancy available” was actually a foreshadowing of what Jesus would encounter over and again when knocking on the doors of people’s hearts.

John records, “He came to His own (not just the Jewish people, but the very world he had created), and His own received Him not” (John 1:11).

Dejected, tired, and experiencing painful birth pangs, Joseph and Mary walked around to the back of the hotel.

There they spotted a feeding trough, a few animals, and some space for her to lie down on the ground.

Joseph likely spread out a blanket for her as the birth pangs grew closer together.

There were no doctors, sanitation, pain relievers, nurses, midwives, or good light.

By the dim light of a lantern or two, Joseph did his best to help her.

It was painful, bloody, and certainly not what they had imagined their child of promise, their miracle baby would be born.

And then it was over. The baby boy was born. His first cry split the night like a knife.

I believe Joseph and Mary studied him carefully, up and down his little body, into his eyes, because they knew he was not normal—in a supernatural sense.

Mary had conceived a child as a virgin.

She knew it.

And Joseph had been visited by angels and told it.

There under the stars in a barnyard, lying in a feeding trough, was the Son of God!

When I think of how the birth of Jesus Christ transformed that barnyard into a place of hope, and joy, and life, it strikes me that what we see is a picture of real life.

Before Jesus was born there, that barnyard was dark, dirty, and lonely.

Think of those words—DARK, DIRTY, LONELY.

That is exactly the way the Bible describes man’s heart before Jesus is born in it!

When I picture that barnyard, and what it was before Jesus arrived, and how his birth transformed it, I understand God’s reason for allowing His only begotten Son to be born there.

It is a perfect picture of the heart of man in his lost condition.

First, the Bible says man’s heart is:

Dark without God

When I say dark, I mean in the sense of spiritual darkness, the darkness that comes from not walking with God in the light.

Sin extinguishes the light of God’s presence, love and truth in our lives.

The Bible says of man’s heart:

Genesis 6:5: "The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

Psalms 51:5: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me."

Ecclesiastes 7:20: "Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins."

Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?"

John 3:19: "And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil."

Romans 3:10-11: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God."

So the barnyard where Jesus was born was a dark place, just like the heart is without God.

Then second, the barnyard was:

Dirty

It was a place only for animals.

It wasn’t sanitized, clean, or wholesome.

And neither is the human heart without God.

Jesus taught that the heart is the epicenter, the spawning ground for all the sins that plague us.

Mark 7:21-23: "Evil thoughts come from the inside, from people's hearts. So do sexual sins, stealing and murder. Adultery, 22 greed, hate and cheating come from people's hearts too. So do desires that are not pure, and wanting what belongs to others. And so do telling lies about others and being proud and being foolish. 23 All those evil things come from inside a person. They make him 'unclean."

This is why Jesus told a religious leader named Nicodemus, “You must be born again. You must be born from above. You need a new nature, a new heart.”

Ezekiel prophesied that God would do this very thing:

36: 26-27 “I will make you completely pure and clean. I will take all of the statues of your gods away from you. 26 I will give you new hearts. I will give you a new spirit that is faithful to me. I will remove your stubborn hearts from you. I will give you hearts that obey me. I will put my Spirit in you.”

The barnyard was dark, and dirty, and it was:

Destitute

It was a lonely place—everyone else was in the hotel.

All that greeted them was a few barnyard animals and the starry sky.

And so it is with the heart of people today—lonely.

H.G. Wells, the famous science fiction author, said: 'I am sixty, and I am lonely, and I have never found peace'.

We have technology now that can put us in touch with someone on the other side of the world at the click of a mouse.

We have all the social networks like Facebook, Twitter, email, video conferencing, instant messaging, blogging, and on it goes.

Yet we’re lonelier than ever.

One psychologist, when asked if all these new forms of communication had taken the place of real-life interaction replied:

“The problem is that all this input isn’t about relating, it isn’t about communicating, and it isn’t about intimacy.”

In fact, social networking has produced a new called, “Friendini,” taken from the magician “Houdini.”

A “Friendini” is a person who is there one minute and “poof!” gone the next.

I read recently of a new phenomenon of what we might call “Mall roamers.”

The story was about people who go to the mall not to buy anything, but just to be around people because they’re so lonely.

An advertisement in a Kansas newspaper read like this:

“I will listen to you talk for 30 minutes without comment for five dollars.”

Though is sounds like a hoax, it wasn't long before the individual who had placed the advertisement in the newspaper was bombarded by about 10 to 20 calls a day.

The pain of loneliness for some is so sharp that they were willing to try anything for half an hour of companionship!

David the Psalmist, though famous, understood loneliness well:

Ps. 73:20 “I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none".

Now, the Bible teaches that the root cause of loneliness is the absence of God in the heart.

It was God Himself Who first noticed loneliness when He said of Adam, “It is not good for man to be alone.”

Listen Carefully:

There is an existential loneliness, a spiritual loneliness within the heart of every person that can only be filled by the personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ in salvation.

This is the only way that the lack of peace, the spiritual loneliness, can be dispelled from our dark hearts!

We must repent of our sins and place faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation.

When Jesus was born in that barnyard:

Darkness was turned to the light of hope.

Filthiness became the place where purity was born.

And loneliness was replaced with the Presence of a loving God!

Truly Jesus’ birth was cradle that rocked the world because it transforms the hearts of men.

What about you tonight?

Has your heart received Christ into it?

Are you sure?

How does one do that?

Easy, He’s as close as a prayer of invitation.

Let’s pray.

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