The Mystery of the Manger

Introduction

Good morning!

If you haven’t noticed We are moving quite fast into the Christmas season!

It seems that every year it comes faster and faster

For some of us that can be a good thing for others not such a good thing!

Either way, I find myself each year noticing more and more the difference between how the world is preparing for and celebrating Christmas and how we as believers are preparing for and celebrating Christmas.

The difference is distinct or maybe I will say the difference SHOULD be distinct.

I have come To this season of Christmas with a sense of awe and appreciation for what it truly means.

An account that has been told and read for millennia! Yet every time that I read it there are so many mysteries!

That’s what I want to look at this morning. I want to walk through the Mystery of the Manger!

Now you may be thinking, “how is Greg going to tie in the story of Christmas to the book of Ephesians and the armor of God?”

That is a great question and the answer is IM NOT!

We are going to be in Luke 2 this morning not Ephesians so you all get a little break.

So if you have your bibles turn to Luke 2 and lets stand as we read the holy and infallible Word of God.

Luke 2:1–7 (ESV)

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. 6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

On the morning of July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, took off from Lae, New Guinea, on one of the last legs in their historic attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Their next destination was Howland Island in the central Pacific Ocean, some 2,500 miles away. A U.S. Coast Guard cutter, the Itasca, waited there to guide the world-famous aviator in for a landing on the tiny, uninhabited coral atoll.

But Earhart never arrived on Howland Island. Battling overcast skies, faulty radio transmissions and a rapidly diminishing fuel supply in her twin-engine Lockheed Electra plane, she and Noonan lost contact with the Itasca somewhere over the Pacific. Despite a search-and-rescue mission of unprecedented scale, including ships and planes from the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard scouring some 250,000 square miles of ocean, they were never found.

In its official report at the time, the Navy concluded that Earhart and Noonan had run out of fuel, crashed into the Pacific and drowned. A court order declared Earhart legally dead in January 1939, 18 months after she disappeared. From the beginning, however, debate has raged over what actually happened on July 2, 1937 and afterward. Several alternate theories have surfaced, and many millions of dollars have been spent searching for evidence that would reveal the truth of Earhart’s fate.

That was a short exert from an article written by History.com. One of the MANY mysteries that have never been solved

As we look at the Christmas story and have read it or heard it read countless times, I asked myself and I want to ask you ”have you forgotten the mystery?”

Think about all the mysteries in the account of Christs birth!

A mysterious star in the sky never seen before.

Mysterious visitors from the East following that star.

Mysterious visitations of angels.

Mysterious dreams and visions.

The mystery of a pregnant woman who was a virgin!

And the greatest mystery of all—the Incarnation: that God would come to this earth as a human to suffer and die and bear the sins of those who despised and rejected him!

The Christmas account is FULL of mystery and miracles!

But the mystery that I want to focus on is the Mystery of the Manger.

Why was Jesus laid in a manger? Why couldn’t he have been born in one of the inns? Why couldnt God have saved one room for Mary and Joseph?

Lots of questions and not alot of answers found in the Bible!

But what I want to do today is look at 3 symbols of the manger

Because I believe the manger was prophetic of who Jesus was going to be.

First I think it would be good to see what an actual 1 century manger would have typically looked like.

This would have been very similar to what the king of kings and lord of lords was laid in as a newborn Baby! Not exactly what I call luxurious! This is a manger! Or maybe a better way of saying it is a feeding trough. Not the most sanitary of sleeping arrangements! This is what the animals, mostly sheep, would have eaten out of.

So with that image in your head lets look at the first way that the manger represents who Jesus was to become

1. Sign of Rejection

The Bible is very clear that there was no room for them at the inn

There was room for other people at the inn. There was room for business and pleasure, but there was no room for Jesus at the inn

You see the situation was desperate. Mary was ready to give birth and they needed to find a place for her

A stable was what they had And a dirty cold feeding trough is what was available

The only reason that Jesus was born in the stable is because of REJECTION.

The idea of rejection would be something very common to Jesus throughout his life and ministry.

John 1:1–14 (ESV)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Also in 1 Peter 2 We see that Jesus was a living stone rejected by men

In his life Jesus faced rejection from people all around him.

The Pharisees, the Sadducee’s, the Scribes, many Jews, and even one of his own disciples and family Members

Many of the Jews even to this day still reject Jesus as the Messiah And so does the world.

Friends our savior was born in a manger out of rejection and lived a life full of rejection.

We even see today this ever growing issue to try and remove Jesus from the Christmas season

Is it Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays? Are nativities in public places acceptable? Should people sing christmas songs that have a religious lean to them?

All of these are ways that society continues to reject Jesus.

And it is easy to point fingers at a world that doesn’t know better, but we have to ask ourselves, “AM I GUILTY OF REJECTING JESUS?”

When you KNOW Jesus is asking you to do something, witness to a coworker, help somebody that needs it, maybe even stand up For christ when someone is rejecting Him, when you know Jesus is asking you to do this and you choose not to do them it is a form of rejecting him.

When Jesus is asking you to live in forgiveness and walk in love with someone you really don’t like and you choose not to, its a way of rejecting him.

Church Ive noticed, because I am as guilty as anyone in this room, its easy to point fingers at those outside the doors of the church as those reject Jesus

But when we decide to disobey the one we are claiming as LORD (ruler over our life) we are just as guilty.

Am I guilty of rejecting Jesus this morning?

So the manger illustrates that Jesus was going to be REJECTED

The second sign of the manger was that it was a

2. Sign of Redemption

A little further down in Luke chapter 2 we see something interesting

We see a group of shepherds just hanging out in the fields like they did every night before that. All of a sudden a message is given to them by an angel

Luke 2:11–12 (ESV)

11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

There are 2 signs that the shepherds are given here

A. Wrapped in Swaddling Clothes

Now this would have been a very common thing

The VAST majority of people in this day and age would have used simple layers of cloth to wrap their new born babies up in. They would wrap and wrap the cloth around the baby until all that would have been seen was its little head

Only the extremely wealthy would have used anything other that cloth. They would have used fine silk to wrap them up

So the fact that the shepherds were to look for a baby wrapped in cloth wasn’t going to be very helpful.

But the second sign was FAR more unusual!

B. Laying in a Manger

Now this would have been weird!

Travis and Alayne new baby. Imagine they would have told everyone that if you want to see baby Asher, then come to the barn and look in the feeding trough

That would be different! That is what it would have sounded like to the shepherds.

Now I want to remind you, the majority of the time these mangers would have been used to feed sheep.

How fitting! The place where Jesus lays as a new born baby is connected to sheep. You see Jesus is referred to as the Lamb of God 29 times in the Bible

We cannot separate the Cross and the Manger. The connection of Jesus Birth in a manger that was used to feed sheep and being the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the World are INSEPARABLE!

Paul connects the 2 perfectly in Galatians 4:4-5

Galatians 4:4–5 (ESV)

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

We can see the clear CONNECTION of the manger and the cross in this verse.

READ BOLD

The redemption of us as sinners was the PRIMARY reason Jesus was born! And how perfectly fitting that he was first laid in a manger for sheep.

1 Corinthians 5:7 tells us that Christ our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed.

The connection to the manger and our redemption as sinful people is beautiful and not a mistake.

So the manger shows us how Jesus was going to be REJECTED and how he was going to REDEEM

The final sign of the manger is that it is a

3. Sign of Reachability

There was no more lowly or common place for someone to be born then that of a stable.

The fact that the shepherds, the most common of people, were told to go to a manger, the most common of places, to find a baby, the most common of people, wrapped in swaddling clothes, the most common of material, shows us that Jesus was as reachable as can be

He was not born among the religious elite or the wealthy

Jesus was born to a common carpenter and an unwed teenage girl.

The fact that we was laid in a manger after birth just accentuates the fact that Jesus is reachable.

We see this played out throughout Jesus ministry as he gravitated towards the sick and lame, the sinners and tax collectors, the fishermen and the shepherds.

We also see it played out in the most well known verse in the Bible. John 3:16

John 3:16 (ESV)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Whoever! Did you hear that?—The verse says that salvation is for “WHOSOEVER!” That means the RICH MAN and POOR WOMAN; the SMART and the NOT SO SMART; the TALENTED and the MEDOCRE; the EDUCATED and the ILLITERATE; the UPRIGHT CITIZEN and the WORST OF CRIMINALS. That means ME and that means YOU, no matter who you are…or what your background,…or what your intellectual, or educational, or economic level is…or what your sins may have been in the past.

Jesus is a reachable savior and it STARTED in the MANGER!

The manger showed us that Jesus didn’t come just for the people that were ”good” enough to be able to reach him.

He came for EVERYONE.

We see that in the christmas story as well.

We have shepherds and kings, animals and angels, a star and a stable. It’s the perfect blend of reachable and royal!

The Mystery of the Manger is profound and simple.

A sign that pointed to the REJECTION, the REDEMPTION, and the REACHABILITY of our savior!

Do we still marvel at the mystery of christmas? Or are we too wrapped up, no pun intended, in the secularization of the season.

We have a savior that changed the world and our lives.

Ralph Sockman wrote “The hinge of History is on the door of a Bethlehem stable” Repeat

Pray