Dear Friends in Christ – Lord of the First Advent, which we will soon joyfully celebrate; as well as Lord of the Second Advent, which we joyfully anticipate:
Using a type of literature that might best be described as "Christian fantasy," a writer by the name of J.B. Phillips writes about a senior angel who is instructing a very young angel on the splendors of the universe. Together they view whirling galaxies and majestic constellations, and then they flit across the seeming infinity of space until they enter one particular galaxy of 500 billion stars. Allow me to read a passage from the book…
As the two of them drew near to the star which we call our sun and to its circling planets, the senior angel pointed out to a small and rather insignificant sphere turning very slowly on its axis. It looked as dull as a dirty tennis ball to the little angel, whose mind was filled with the size and glory of what he had seen.
"I want you to watch that one particularly," said the senior angel, pointing with his finger.
"Well, it looks very small and rather dirty to me," said the little angel. "What’s special about that one?"
The senior angel then goes on to tell him that this was the famous and renowned "Visited Planet"…
"Do you mean that our great and glorious Prince… went down in Person to this fifth-rate little ball? Why should He do a thing like that?"…
The little angel’s face wrinkled in disgust. "Do you mean to tell me," he said, "that He stooped so low as to become one of those creeping, crawling creatures of that floating ball?"
"I do, and I don’t think He would like you to call them ‘creeping, crawling creatures’ in that tone of voice. For, strange as it may seem to us, He loves them. He went down to visit them to lift them up to become like Him."
The little angel looked blank. Such a thought was almost beyond his comprehension.
And yet it’s true. The wonderful, almost incomprehensible message of Christmas is that Jesus did indeed come to us. We are the Visited Planet. And that beautiful piece of news – Jesus comes to us – will serve as our theme for this year’s midweek Advent devotions as we prepare ourselves anew to meet our Savior…
I would imagine that many of us have nativity scenes among the stock of Christmas decorations we will soon get out and place around our houses. The look and the material and the size of these nativity scenes will vary among us, but the characters will not. And always at the center of the scene will be the yearly re-enactment of the words of our text: Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, lying in a manger…
An endearing scene, indeed. However, have we become so accustomed to the manger as a Christmas symbol that we’ve lost sight of what it really means and what it tells us about our Savior? Today we’d like to look at these things as we remember how
JESUS COMES TO US… IN A MANGER
What, exactly, is the meaning of the manger? Let us consider these three thoughts…
It shows us what God was willing to do for us
It presents God to us in a way that we can understand Him
It is the first step toward an even greater act of love
Let me ask you a question. How far are you willing to go for a loved one? We hear and read about people going to tremendous lengths and expending tremendous effort in order to help their loved ones. The power of love is indeed strong.
But what about someone you don’t know, or you do know but don’t particularly like? Or take it a step farther. What about someone who has openly declared themselves to be your enemy and made it clear by their actions that they really want nothing to do with you? How far would you go for them?
The Bible tells us about the human condition and its natural relationship with God. Paul tells us "the sinful mind is hostile to God." He tells us that "by nature we were by nature objects of God’s wrath." In other words, we aren’t born neutral or indifferent toward God. We come into this world as His opponents. The creatures are in a natural state of rebellion against their Creator. By nature we don’t like taking orders from anyone; we don’t like the idea of anyone other than ourselves ultimately being in control of our lives; and we don’t like the thought of seeing ourselves as sinners…
Adolf Hitler – he’s a sinner. Jeffrey Dahmer – now there’s a sinner. Those two boys who killed their classmates at Columbine High School – those guys are sinners. We don’t really like to put ourselves in that kind of category. But the fact of the matter is that we are sinners. The Bible says "ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…"
And yet, God in His great love didn’t give up on us. Rather than just wiping out the human race because of its chronic ungratefulness and rebellious spirit, God chose to redeem us… to change us… to restore us. By the power of the Holy Spirit He gives us a new spirit and a new heart through trusting in the work that Jesus did to save us from our sins and to save us from ourselves…
The manger shows us just how far God was willing to go for us. You may recall that we at times refer to the 33-year ministry of our Lord on this, the Visited Planet, as His "state of humiliation." By this we mean that Jesus for the most part laid aside his divine power and glory as the Son of God in order to live and die for us in a lowly way.
Jesus as God the Son has been in existence from eternity. But on the first Christmas the infinite and the finite intersected in the confines of space and time and, in the words of John chapter 1, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." And it didn’t happen in a king’s palace or at a rich man’s residence or even with the help of a midwife. It happened in a stable in Bethlehem.
When Jesus was born Mary and Joseph had not been the recipients of a baby shower – they didn’t have along with them any nicely knitted blankets. So they wrapped their child in "swaddling clothes;" that is, strips of cloth – possibly even torn from their own garments. When Jesus was born they didn’t have a bassinet or a baby’s bed, so they put him in the closest thing to it – which just happened to be a feeding trough for animals…
And so Jesus comes to us in a manger. He came to us in deep humility. God becoming flesh was our Heavenly Father’s plan to save us from our sins and to restore us in a right relationship with Him. The manger shows us just how far God was willing to go for us…
The manger also presents God to us in a way that we can understand Him. Martin Luther concludes one of his Christmas sermons with these words:
Let us, then, meditate upon the Nativity just as we see it happening in our own babies. I would not have you contemplate the deity of Christ, the majesty of Christ, but rather his flesh. Look upon the Baby Jesus. Divinity may terrify man. Inexpressible majesty will crush him. That is why Christ took on our humanity, except for sin, that he should not terrify us but rather that with love and favor he should console and confirm…
To me there is no greater consolation given to mankind than this, that Christ became man, a child, a babe, playing in the lap and at the breasts of his most gracious mother. Who is there whom this sight would not comfort? Now is overcome the power of sin, death, hell, conscience and guilt, if you come to this gurgling Babe and believe that he is come, not to judge you, but to save you.
This is good insight. Divinity may terrify us. Inexpressible majesty would crush us. So the Word became flesh. God is love, and He showed His love to us by becoming one of us. The baby Jesus, God from all eternity, is also flesh and blood. God is love, and here in the manger we see the very essence and embodiment of His nature.
So the manger puts God at a level where we can understand Him. The agnostic will say God cannot be known. The manger says He can be known. The philosopher will say God is beyond our comprehension. The manger says He can be understood. The spiritualist will say God cannot be defined but at best must be called "the nameless one of a thousand names." The manger says He can be defined. His name is Jesus, and He is the Savior.
So He comes to us in a manger, as a baby, in a way that we can know Him and relate to Him and His Word and His promises.
There is a final meaning to the manger. In addition to showing us what God was willing to do for us and presenting God to us in a way we can understand Him, the manger also is just the first step toward an even greater act of love…
The life that was born in Bethlehem presupposes a life that will be lived for us and then voluntarily given for us on Calvary. The wood of the manger points to the wood of a cross some thirty-three years later where Jesus would suffer for our sins. The blackness of that Christmas night presupposes the darkness that would cover the earth from noon till three on Good Friday when Jesus underwent the pain of hell as our substitute and in our place. The first cry that came from baby Jesus lungs presupposes the last ones when he proclaimed to the world that "it (our salvation) is finished (complete)." And the "fullness of time" would be completed by the emptiness of the tomb on Easter Sunday.
In other words, the manger points to an even greater act of love.
We’ll bring our thoughts to a close. In the Advent prayer of the church found in our hymnal we ask God to "spare us from the stress of deadlines and the frenzy of commercialism." Consequently, during this Advent season let us take time (as we are doing tonight) to contemplate His grace and to thank Him that we are the Visited Planet. Let us, before we go to bed tonight, thank God for the opportunity to gather around His Word as we are now doing…
But above all, let us thank God and order our lives around this glorious Advent truth: Jesus comes to us. Amen.