Wilmot First Presbyterian Church

Scripture: Luke 2:12

Manger

Any chair is a throne if the king is sitting in it. It is the king that makes the throne, not the throne that makes the king. A manger was a feed box. It would not be pretty, it would not be fancy. It would not be fine wood nor fine woodwork, just scraps that were made to be strong and functional. It’s hard to imagine a king who would settle for a manger to be their throne, though we celebrate one who did. Perhaps that curious willingness to be brought so low is even part of the reason?

Until the incarnation, God was God, and creation was creation. God “spoke” and it was so (Gen. 1:3); creation brought out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo). The blazing stars and their worlds, spinning galaxies, gravity, the atoms, the particles, the matter.., but until that one moment when God clothed himself with that very matter, the two were connected but separate.

In order to understand something we must take its measure, or have a point of common intersection or experience to begin the relationship from. The physical world can not comprehend the metaphysical (John 1:10) and so the metaphysical took on flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). God became “incarnate” (enfleshed) not to bring God to the creation, but to bring the creation to God.

Atheists may argue we can not prove God, and they would be correct. The physical can not measure the metaphysical, but to argue that only things which can be measured or experienced is “real” is to argue for the reality of art but deny the reality of an artist. We can not “prove” God, but it is hard to argue against the existence of Jesus in history. Obviously there is a step or two between the existence of a man named Jesus, and the amazing claim that he is God incarnate. But for those of us who celebrate Christmas, we claim exactly that, and more.

The Messiah was promised to the prophets, heralded by angels, visited by Magi… and after the incarnation, “once the time came” for him to be delivered, they promptly placed him a rough timbered feed box. Perhaps the edges were somewhat smooth having literally been sanded down by the hides of the various animals and thousands of visits to find nourishment. Smooth or not, the box was just a manger and the King of Creation was now resting in it.

The evidence we have about our God tells us there is nothing pretentious about him. This King’s first breaths, first rest, first visitors… took place in a pungent cave from a feed bin for animals. Whenever scripture gives us a curious detail there is usually a lesson in it. God, after all, has a reason for the way things are done.

Paul told the church in Philippi that Jesus did not count equality with God something to hang on to, but rather emptied himself and took on the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6). This (literal) humiliation stepping out of heaven and into the creation would surely be much more of a leap than the step down from the poshest palace to a dirty manger. The road from the manger treads further down as to well, even to a cross! If God is willing to step down not just into the suffering of humanity, but into the lowest part of it, then we who follow Christ can do likewise. Part of the lesson of the manger is to remind us to never be unwilling to step “down”. Because the child of the manger is part of us, Christians are called into the lives of those who suffer around us.

Many hold on to the fallacy that in order to receive this Jesus as the Messiah, the King of our lives, we need to get things tidied up. Try telling that to a criminal on the cross (Luke 23) or to a family who sticks their first child in a feed trough. If the King of Creation is willing to accept being placed in the feed trough of slobbering animals, then there is no stain or stench in our life God would not gladly step into as well. That doesn’t mean we don’t try to live a better life, but we mustn’t fool ourselves into thinking the orderliness of our lives or the purity of our heart is what makes it fit for God. Our hearts may be filled with cluttered heaps of hoarded wounds, and our minds a mix of dung and straw, but God is willing and eager to reside in us and in so doing, make our hearts and minds a throne.

Eventually on Christmas Eve. there comes a point when the din has died down and the rush is over. Pause in that moment to linger in the relative quiet. We may not be able to touch the metaphysical world, but that doesn’t mean the metaphysical isn’t “touching” us. The incarnation of God in Jesus was a new thing, but God is full of ideas and not done doing new things (Isaiah 43:19). We believe God is doing those new things even now. In that quiet may we all be able to perceive it.

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus, and make room for yourself in the clutter of our lives. Take what we have and show us what is real in the midst of all the material we are surrounded by. We pray in Your name, AMEN

Activity: Find a place to sit down quietly, let 10 deep breaths escape through your nose, let your shoulders drop… and sit until you are ready to get up.