Manger

Luke 2:1-7 (The Message)

About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria.

Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David's town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant.

While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel.

I wonder how many times I've ever read these words outside of December?

Not nearly as many as I have during that month. Nothing seems like "Christmas," more than hearing a sweet little child fumble her or his way through these opening verses of Luke 2 at Christmas Eve worship.

The images are timeless, and deeply inscribed in our hearts and minds if we grew up hearing them since childhood.

The pregnant woman riding on the donkey, her husband walking by her side. The refusal at the "inn," and their placement in a stable.

A baby wrapped in blankets and placed in a feed trough.

These images all convey one thing in particular: vulnerability.

Another way to say the same thing? Weakness.

Weakness and vulnerability? How can that be possible for the King? This is the messiah after all. This is the "Word," the "Logos" written about in the Gospel of John...

The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one.

Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!—
came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn't put it out.

John 1:1-15 (the message)

This was the power that lay helpless in a manger. This is the incarnation. This is the nature of God's great love for his creation, for us.

Caesar had the power to make everyone travel to their ancestral homes. Quirinius was the enforcer and law of the land.

In telling the story of Jesus' birth, Luke seems to ask the question..."who is this baby?"

That's the question for all of us. The answer is one of faith. God's power made perfect in vulnerability. Vulnerable for us.

Prayer: God of Christmas and Easter, and every day that has been or will be...thank you for being vulnerable, for us. May we learn the lessons of the manger. In our weakness, your great strength can be made known.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end, Amen.

Tomorrow's Scripture: Luke 2:8-20